I hate coffee. Fortunately, the world’s best cafés offer much more than that bitter brown beverage, so I often found myself acquiring some sustenance in their establishments while traveling around the world. Café culture varies around the globe, but some commonalities filter through all of them. Across the board, they’re social hubs for locals to meet in a casual setting. Although a formal restaurant may be the scene of extreme-stakes business negotiations, you are unlikely to find highly caffeinated conversations at a café. Rather, customers engage in chats that gently percolate in a relaxed manner that can extend for hours, pore over the newspaper, or just placidly watch the world go by without any qualms about not fretting over what needs to be done next. These are my favorites.

#1 Le Royal Café (Antwerp, Belgium)

For me, having a meal in a train station has always conjured up images of barely edible food that you ingest for the sole purpose of sustenance. That all changed when I arrived at one of the world’s most beautiful train stations. I arrived in Antwerp via train at Central Station, a positively gorgeous structure completed in 1905. From the impressive train shed to the sumptuous main hall, with its arches and marble and dome, Central Station is a destination in and of itself. Halfway down the marble staircase, a side staircase leads to another destination—Le Royal Café Brasserie & Restaurant. In 2013, the former waiting rooms were converted into this café. I immediately felt like I was dining in a palace. Neo-baroque façades were restored, terrazzo floors with a mix of marbles were installed, and copper, wood, and stucco, as well as cream and ocher colors, add warmth to this dining establishment. Large mirrors flank the gorgeous clock with gilded festoons and leaves. Modern lights hang from gilded medallions on the coffered ceiling. In the center of the room, an oval cocoon of sorts provides a secluded atmosphere with cozy seating. Clearly, this is not a grab-and-go kind of place; this is elegant dining, for whatever meal you’re enjoying. I was here for a late lunch, so I sat at one of the set tables with full service and ordered up a generous serving of linguine pesto with arugula, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, and parmesan cheese shavings, while listening to Fleetwood Mac and Frank Sinatra. Make sure not to miss it, whether or not you’re using the station for any of your train travels.

#2 Robert’s Coffee Jugend (Helsinki, Finland)

Now Robert’s Coffee Jugend, the former Aschan Café promoted itself as the most beautiful café in Helsinki. That’s a big boast—but it turned out to be true, despite some tough competition (see #4, below). The café occupies the ground floor of a building completed in 1827 for a Russian-born merchant for both commercial and residential use. Renovations in 1904 converted it into a bank and the Art Nouveau fantasy it remains. Under the arched entrance, a small vestibule sports some stone booths and tables for two, with owls carved into the seating dividers and sculptures of men in various poses, including one happily amassing a pile of coins. Inside, the café becomes church-like. A central nave with a vaulted ceiling and skylight accommodates the service and main seating areas. The walls tilt inward, springing from arches and robust pillars decorated with sculpted flora and fauna—leaves, cat heads, and water elements in particular. Two side aisles feature additional seating, with rich Art Nouveau ornamentation and earthy colors. At the far end, a broad arch leads to what could easily be an apse, a semicircular seating area under a wonderful mural of an autumnal forest scene with the city skyline silhouetted in the background across the water. There is not a more atmospheric spot in the city to enjoy your coffee break with a tasty lemon croissant.

#3 Café Christiania (Oslo, Norway)

Although it seems like this café/restaurant has been around for decades, Café Christiania opened for business only in 2005. Located across the street from the Norwegian Parliament building, the café occupies the ground floor of the handsome main lodge building of the Norwegian Order of Freemasons. The bow section extends from the building in a stone semicircle with large windows and outdoor seating on the rooftop terrace—prime viewing areas for people-watching in one of Oslo’s liveliest areas. Inside, the café exudes decades of history via its collection of Norwegian country store items from the first 60 years of the 1900s. From mismatched chandeliers to stylish hats, from cookie tins to advertisements for all things Norwegian, the assorted bric-a-brac has the potential to make the place feel a little kitschy, but somehow the medley of curios transcends that, and Café Christiania comes off as elegant. You may want to pop in for the cafe’s proper afternoon tea six days per week, but I settled in for dinner: an appetizer of fresh asparagus with greens and Serano ham, followed by halibut with garlic foam, puréed carrots, potatoes, and sweet onions with a touch of licorice, and a “chocolate nemesis,” served with a sorbet of blood orange and berries, and a raspberry syrup.

#4 Café Kappeli (Helsinki, Finland)

Set in the heart of the city and just steps from Robert’s Coffee Jugend, the elegant Café Kappeli has been satisfying customers since 1867. Helsinki’s signature café was a meeting place right from the start, not only for hungry patrons, but for artists, musicians, and poets eager to exchange ideas and philosophies. Fronting Esplanade Park, Kappeli boasts two very dissimilar faces: The central entrance is a façade of slender columns, a trio of arches, caryatids, and a highly sculpted, classical pediment; the other, to either side, with ceiling-to-floor ornamented windows, domes, and green roofs. Inside, the posh yet comfortable décor includes crystal chandeliers, friezes, archival photos of the city, statues and paintings by famous Finnish artists, and a bar with a wonderful plaster and gold-leaf ceiling. I would pass by every night on my way back to my hotel, the superior Hotel Kämp, and pop in for dessert—a slice of light chocolate cake and an Italian strawberry soda one night; a slice of mouthwatering mango-lime cake and a cup of wild berry tea on another. In fairer weather, grab a table at one of the city’s largest outdoor terraces to engage in some people-watching or to listen to live music on the Espa stage just a few feet away.

#5 Fat City Bar and Café (Sacramento, California)

I built up an appetite by roaming around Old Sacramento, a historic district along the Sacramento River filled with cobblestone streets and beautifully restored Gold Rush–era buildings where I could easily imagine damsels in distress and shootouts between sheriffs and bandits, and by spending some time in the California State Railroad Museum, with more than 20 locomotives and railroad cars, including the car that carried the golden spike used at the completion ceremony of the first Transcontinental Railroad. Craving some food, I stepped into Fat City Bar and Café, a one-story brick building with a broad covered wood-plank sidewalk. Originally a general merchandise store built in 1849, it opened in 1976 as the café, the dream of a Chinese immigrant, Frank Fat, who worked his way up from a dishwasher to a businessman. The spectacular interior features a 150-year-old bar, Tiffany-style lamps, leaded glass, tin ceiling, and stained-glass art, including the Purple Lady, a work that won first prize at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The menu’s just as enticing, and I could not have asked for a more perfectly prepared meal of flank steak with lime juice, basil, and paprika, and a side of garlic mashed potatoes.

Five Runners-Up

• Abecedarium (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
• Café Nervosa (Toronto, Ontario)
• 1908 Café (Otago, New Zealand)
• New Moon Café (Nevada City, California)
• Café Opera (Stockholm, Sweden)

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