Marika Dobbin
March 6, 2013
The Age
Professional coffee price watcher Wayne Fowler said some Melbourne fine dining restaurants are going over the top with their prices.
Where is Melbourne’s most expensive coffee? At Melbourne’s most exclusive restaurants.
Melbourne’s fine dining establishments are setting a new benchmark for coffee prices in the city, with customers being charged up to $10 for a standard cup, research into coffee prices shows.
A latte at Vue de Monde on Collins Street costs $10, whether served in the restaurant or the accompanying cocktail bar, The Lui Bar. But the multimillion-dollar eatery on the top deck of the Rialto is not alone in lifting the coffee-price ceiling, with iconic Italian restaurant Grossi Florentino close behind at $8 for a cappuccino.
Other fine dining restaurants to raise the bar are Chinese restaurant Flower Drum ($5 for a Vittoria plunger coffee) and The Press Club ($5 for Helleniko kafe).
Fortunately for bean lovers, these celebrated restaurants are way ahead of the average price of $3.37 for a takeaway coffee in Melbourne, a report called The Real CPI (Cappuccino Price Index) shows. Professional coffee price watcher Wayne Fowler said some Melbourne fine dining restaurants are going over the top with their prices, especially when its costs about 20¢ on average in coffee beans per cup.
The average price of coffee in Melbourne has risen slightly from $2.93 four years ago, but by less than inflation. Prices have been tempered by an explosion in cafe numbers and a trend of specialty coffee houses opening up, as well as a drop in the international cost of coffee beans and the strength of the Australian dollar.
Hospitality consultant Tony Eldred said the industry was much less profitable than it used to be and businesses needed to put up prices to stay alive. ”You can pay more for a bottle of water than a coffee,” he said. ”It’s time the price went up because otherwise the industry is running a charity for coffee drinkers of Melbourne.”
Editor of Fairfax Media’s The Good Cafe Guide, Matt Holden, said that new Richmond cafe Top Paddock serves the same Five Senses coffee as Vue de Monde, but at just $3.80 a cup. ”$10 a cup is nothing to do with the price of coffee and everything to do with the cost of running restaurants like Vue de Monde,” Mr Holden said.
Australian coffee prices are more expensive than London, New York, Vancouver and Sao Paulo, but cheaper than Moscow, Shanghai and Tokyo, according to a 2012 Cost of Living Survey
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