Coffee, Cake and a Piano: Phnom Penh’s Café Life

Phnom Penh’s café life, from Cambodian coffee houses and the art cafés around Street 240 to afternoon tea at Raffles, the Rosewood and the Sofitel, with a directory of the places in our guide.

Phnom Penh runs on coffee. In the morning it is sweet and iced, over condensed milk; by the afternoon, when the heat settles on the boulevards, the city moves indoors, into cool gallery cafés and grand hotel lounges, for cake, tea and a little quiet.

We love both sides of it, the neighbourhood coffee house and the silver teapot. Here is how to spend a day at Phnom Penh’s tables.

The coffee houses

Start with Cambodia’s own. Brown Coffee is a Cambodian coffee company with cafés all over the city, and its menu has its own take on the condensed-milk coffee that Phnom Penh wakes up to. In BKK1, near the Independence Monument, Java Creative Café has been a café and community art space since 2000, and its bakery supplies bread to cafés across the city.

In the French Quarter, Khéma Pasteur is the French café, bakery and deli on the ground floor of the Arunreas Hotel, on the corner of Pasteur and Street 228, for a croissant and a proper coffee.

Art and coffee

Off Street 240, the lane of boutiques by the Royal Palace, ARTillery has been a gallery and creative café since 2013, with community art projects, food classes and wellness events. Java’s walls carry exhibitions too, and high above the Wat Phnom quarter, the Rosewood keeps its own art gallery, with a new exhibition every season.

In the heat of the afternoon, Phnom Penh slows down, and the city moves indoors for coffee and cake.

Afternoon tea

The grand hotels keep the other tradition. At Raffles Hotel Le Royal, afternoon tea is served in the Elephant Bar. At the Rosewood, the Living Room on Level 35 serves its Butterfly Afternoon Tea from noon to 5pm, with TWG teas and pastries from Butterfly Patisserie next door, and a pianist plays on Thursday and Friday afternoons and at weekends.

At the Sofitel, on the Bassac, afternoon tea is served in The Pavilion, a glasshouse by the pool, with a sparkling Bellini, from noon to 5pm except on Sundays, when it starts at 3pm. And across the river, at the Sokha on the Chroy Changvar peninsula, Champa Café looks back at the city over the water from 6am to 10pm.

Did you know? Butterfly Patisserie, high in Vattanac Capital, is designed after a high-jewellery atelier, and keeps a cake of the month.

Our advice

Our advice: take your morning coffee iced, the Cambodian way, at a neighbourhood café, spend the hottest hours in a gallery café off Street 240, and book afternoon tea at a grand hotel for 3pm. Check each venue’s own page for the day’s hours.