Zagreb Cafés

Coffee. The fifth food group. That brown line that traces the dietary border of the food pyramid. Where would we be without it? Well, probably without this month’s ZIYP for a start. We would also be without the enlightenment, the pyramids, and the occasional heart palpitation. If you can’t live without coffee, you’ve come to the right place. Zagreb’s love affair with the coffee bean is outdone only by the entertainment derived from the art of drinking it. Visitors to the national’s capital are forever stunned by the sheer number of cafes spilling onto the pavement, resplendent in their multitude of shapes and sizes (sometimes no bigger than a walk-in-closet), and their proximity to one another. If you’ve experienced the joy of the Zagreb coffee break, just short of dogma in this city, then you’re familiar with its gregarious customs – people ricocheting from café to café, all hours of the day and in all corners of the city. To drink coffee here is to be a disciple of civilization, sipping cheek by jowl with the rest of polite society.