Đan Nguyen took over an unassuming Plateau corner, the same spot on Rue Roy Est where a long-abandoned restaurant stood for years next to a barbershop and a laundromat. She transformed it into Phin Café, brightening the space with wood and green accents, and a menu offering directly sourced Vietnamese coffee.

Customers flocked to get a taste of her egg coffee: an egg white beaten into condensed milk poured over Vietnamese coffee, dripped the traditional way using a phin filter.

On another street corner between Old Montreal and Griffintown, Sara Sabry of Café 2^nd Gen says “this was supposed to be our quiet, soft launch but it hasn’t been quiet at all.”

Café 2^nd Gen on William Street, offering international specialty flavours over a base of Vietnamese coffee, is a love letter to fusion: Their menu has influences from all around the world, showcases a second-generation identity that fuses with the cultural influences around it, yet still stays true to itself.

“One of our goals is to go back to basics. If we look at a lot of cultures, coffee and tea are really at the base of it.” Sara says. “It’s something that brings people together.”

Bê, a first-generation Montrealer with Vietnamese heritage, opened her café, Bêden Càphê, to preserve her culture and community, and transmit it to her kids. The café is in the same spot where her parents owned the restaurant in which she grew up, and is an ode to that heritage, as well as to her own blend of identity. She now offers uniquely first-generation fusion flavours, nostalgic Vietnamese dishes reinvented through a Montreal lens, like bahn-mi sandwiches inside Saint-Viateur bagels.

Their cafés are part of a new crop of cafés from this past summer that have been redefining what ‘specialty’ means, blending tradition and fusion, identity and community. As the scene in Montreal reaches maturity—sleek, minimalist spaces that celebrate single origins and manual brewing methods—Montrealers seem to crave something different, and cafés are responding with a fusion of cultures like ube matchas, Vietnamese coffee, and egg lattes.

Đan Nguyen took over an unassuming Plateau corner, the same spot on Rue Roy Est where a long-abandoned restaurant stood for years next to a barbershop and a laundromat. She transformed it into Phin Café, brightening the space with wood and green accents, and a menu offering directly sourced Vietnamese coffee.

Customers flocked to get a taste of her egg coffee: an egg white beaten into condensed milk poured over Vietnamese coffee, dripped the traditional way using a phin filter.

On another street corner between Old Montreal and Griffintown, Sara Sabry of Café 2^nd Gen says “this was supposed to be our quiet, soft launch but it hasn’t been quiet at all.”

Café 2^nd Gen on William Street, offering international specialty flavours over a base of Vietnamese coffee, is a love letter to fusion: Their menu has influences from all around the world, showcases a second-generation identity that fuses with the cultural influences around it, yet still stays true to itself.

“One of our goals is to go back to basics. If we look at a lot of cultures, coffee and tea are really at the base of it.” Sara says. “It’s something that brings people together.”

Bê, a first-generation Montrealer with Vietnamese heritage, opened her café, Bêden Càphê, to preserve her culture and community, and transmit it to her kids. The café is in the same spot where her parents owned the restaurant in which she grew up, and is an ode to that heritage, as well as to her own blend of identity. She now offers uniquely first-generation fusion flavours, nostalgic Vietnamese dishes reinvented through a Montreal lens, like bahn-mi sandwiches inside Saint-Viateur bagels.

Their cafés are part of a new crop of cafés from this past summer that have been redefining what ‘specialty’ means, blending tradition and fusion, identity and community. As the scene in Montreal reaches maturity—sleek, minimalist spaces that celebrate single origins and manual brewing methods—Montrealers seem to crave something different, and cafés are responding with a fusion of cultures like ube matchas, Vietnamese coffee, and egg lattes.