Casa Canela

Venezuelan beans, worked at the counter

Casa Canela builds its coffee on Venezuelan beans, selected from the country’s better growing regions and carrying flavour notes of dark chocolate, tropical fruit and citrus. Espresso is the plainest way to meet them, and the baristas are the reason the shop is treated as a specialty address rather than a neighbourhood café: extraction and cup quality are what the place is measured on. The house calls itself the most awarded café in Venezuela, and there is external backing for that, with a placing at number 39 on The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops for 2026.

The sourcing is the argument, and the bar exists to keep it intact from grinder to cup, which is why the espresso is worth ordering plain at least once before anything sweeter arrives at the table.

Coffee, sweets and arepas under one name

The shop began during the pandemic as an innovative baking-supplies concept before it turned into a café, and that origin still shows in how much sweet work sits beside the coffee. Pastelería and panadería run alongside postres and helado, including ice cream made with goat’s milk, which is unusual enough to be worth the detour on its own. The shorthand the brand uses, arepas plus café, brings savoury Venezuelan food into the same room, and there is a poke de pollo thai on the list for anyone treating the visit as a meal. Casa Canela now works across more than one Caracas setting, at La Grand Plaz in Las Mercedes and in El Hatillo, so the name reads as a concept rather than a single counter.

Order the café affogato first

Start with the café affogato. It is the most clearly named order at Casa Canela and it puts the two halves of the shop, the espresso and the ice cream, in the same glass. Follow it with a straight espresso if the beans are the reason you came, since that is where the Venezuelan sourcing reads most directly. On the sweet side, work through the pastry case and the postres, and take the goat’s-milk helado if it is on. For something savoury, the arepas are the house’s own suggestion. The room is set up for an afternoon rather than a queue, so there is no need to rush the order.