Buna

Two roasters carry the bar at Buna: Manhattan Coffee Roasters and Sumo Coffee Roasters, both house staples rather than one-week guests, and both the reason the Lisbon counter argues it can serve the best coffee drinks in the city.

European roasters, matcha beside them

Buna is coffee-led and says so plainly. The beans are grown across the specialty growing world and roasted by European specialty roasteries, with Manhattan and Sumo the two names on the bar most often. The stated ambition is to raise the standard with each customer rather than settle at good enough, which sets the tone at the counter.

Matcha sits inside that same architecture rather than off to one side. Buna promises the perfect matcha drink in the same breath as its specialty coffee, so anyone not drinking coffee is not being handed a consolation. Around them sit food, craft beers and Fritz Kola, which widens the day without diluting the coffee.

A room built around who is in it

The social side is the other half of the concept. Buna describes itself as a place where people connect, and the team is deliberately international, with staff from all over the world serving expats, locals and visitors passing through Lisbon.

That gives the cafe a cosmopolitan character inside a neighbourhood setting: contemporary coffee culture, conversation across languages, and a room that treats the exchange as part of the offer. It is also pet-friendly, which fits a place built around lingering rather than turning tables.

Workshops run alongside the daily service, which suits a bar that would rather explain a coffee than simply hand it over. That teaching instinct is the through-line: two named roasters, a matcha held to the same standard, and staff who expect to be asked what is in the cup.

Coffee first, then the matcha

Begin with coffee, because that is where Buna's quality signal is clearest. Ask what is on from Manhattan or Sumo and take it in whichever form the barista rates that day; both roasters are well known enough that the bar has chosen them on flavour rather than convenience.

Matcha is the obvious second move, prepared with the same seriousness as the coffee. Food rounds the visit out: croissants and focaccia are the items guests mention most, and the kitchen covers enough beyond them to turn a coffee stop into a longer break. Craft beer and Fritz Kola stretch it later, but the sequence that works is coffee, matcha, then something baked.