There’s a lot to love about keeping things casual. Sometimes you just want to pick up a great feed in your comfiest clothing and be back on your way as soon as possible.

These 10 new cafes, bakeries and casual eateries show that casual isn’t a dirty word; venues are turning out drinks and dishes that match the quality of many local restaurants. 

Here, in alphabetical order, are the best new cafes of 2025 – and some honourable mentions.

Cha-no-wa, CBD

Adelaide’s love affair with matcha reached fever pitch in 2025 – but not all matcha is created equal. We’re in the midst of a global matcha shortage, which led some cafe owners to switch to cheaper brands, cut their matcha with other powders or to move onto other specialty drinks. This is far from the case at Cha-no-wa. The Japanese brand opened its first Australian outpost on King William Street at the tail end of 2024 and has since expanded interstate with two Sydney stores. It serves premium matcha sourced from Kyoto. Charlie Lu, an ex- Muni and Hardy’s Verandah chef, runs the show. Alongside matcha and hojicha, the drinks list includes frappes and matcha sundaes. There are also cakes, ice-cream and other desserts.

Falafel Station, St Morris

Falafel Station was already good, but now it’s great. Husband-wife duo Mazen and Sahar El-Baba had been serving Lebanese food from their Prospect base for two years, but when regulars started jokingly complaining that they couldn’t bring their families to sit down and enjoy a meal, they knew it was time to scale up. Now with a new St Morris space, they have capacity to seat 65 patrons. 

The menu has also expanded. While the old menu scratched the surface of Lebanese food, the new one showcases the depth of the El-Babas’ native cuisine. There’s shakshuka; house-made sausages; chickpeas with yoghurt, bread crisps and almonds (fatteh); kofta; falafel; and crispy woodfired flatbread (manoush) with more than 12 topping options.

The El-Babas moved to SA from the Middle East and, despite having a wealth of hospitality experience, were hesitant to open a restaurant in Australia so they started small with Prospect to test the waters. Luckily for them – and us – it went very well. 

Homeboy, CBD

Tom Oswald’s teenage years have looked different to most. At 18, his original Hahndorf cafe pop-up went viral. Oswald is one of a series of Gen Z hospo operators who have turned virality and virtual communities into real-life sales.

Oswald’s original Hahndorf cafe closed in June 2024. After a few months off, the industrious Oswald made the move to the big smoke. Late last year, he opened Homeboy 2.0, a sleek, pared-back space on the ground floor of a student accommodation building on North Terrace. The takeaway-geared site – secured thanks to Renew Adelaide – has an intimate courtyard, planter boxes, and a hole-in-the-wall service window in keeping with the faster pace of the city. The menu is simple, with focaccia toasties and Oswald’s own blend of Homeboy coffee.

Crucially, he also brought along his mum’s famous cinnamon scrolls. Scrolls had a moment in 2025, and Homeboy’s scrolls are topnotch.

Jenny’s Bakery, Keswick

Jenny’s Bakery isn’t exactly new, but its influence built to a fever pitch in 2025. Its Keswick location opened in the old Sylvia’s Deli site this November to much acclaim. It’s a step up in every way with a sleek Euro-inspired Georgie Shepherd design, a 75-person capacity, and room to dine in.

The menu features all the Jenny’s classics: buttery pistachio croissants, Nutella bomboloni, crème brûlée doughnuts, flaky fruit pastries, chewy cookies, meat pies, cakes, and generously layered focaccia sandwiches and subs. New to the line-up are moreish cookie and soft serve combos.

Meli, CBD

Across Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, 2025 has seen a notable rise in Greek eateries. The Greek revival trend went casual with Meli, which marketed itself as a non-traditional Greek venue – a risky move which could provoke the ire of Yiayias everywhere. 

Opened by a group of cousins and their partners who went on holiday to Greece, the venue is designed to bring the energy of Grecian beach bars to Adelaide. It’s styled as a kafenio (coffeehouse) and serves spanakopita sandwiches and moussaka pies. There’s also a Greek-inspired frappe and bottles of Mythos – naturally.

Mr Mario’s, CBD

Restaurant-quality ingredients meet old-school sensibilities at Mr Mario’s, a takeaway joint named after owner Peter Louca’s late father, tucked behind Louca’s Seafood. The two venues share a kitchen as well as produce, meaning Mr Mario’s has access to some of the best local and international seafood. Choose between locally caught garfish, butterfish, calamari, prawns or whiting, served with a side of chips. There’s a fish sanga on offer as well. If you’re not craving seafood, there’s a list of burgers – and a pineapple fritter for those with a sweet tooth.

Pompom, Forestville

For decades, the food scene in Forestville was limited to a smattering of fast-food outlets and the cafe inside the Le Cornu furniture store. That’s all changed now Forestville is set to be redeveloped, which has led to a rush of investment in the suburb. Looking to get in on the rising suburb, Josh and Jacob Baker (the brothers behind Whistle & Flute, Just Down the Road, Sofia and Part Time Lover) opened Pompom with four other business partners. It’s an all-day diner built on fluffy flatbread fired in a Gozney oven.

The flatbreads are stuffed with flavourful fillings. The Pompom has chicken, roast capsicum, feta, tabouli and a house-made sauce. There are two Greek-leaning pitas: one with Cypriot sausage, tzatziki and Greek salad, and another with haloumi, hummus, pickles and radicchio. Another two draw on Adelaide’s love for all things Italian: one with whipped ricotta, spicy salami, chilli honey and almonds, and another with chicken cutlet, Milanese salad, garlic butter and parmesan.

Shadow Baking, Glenelg

In the same way both Australia and New Zealand can argue their rightful claim to pavlova, Adelaide and Sydney both have a claim to Messina. Sure, it began in Sydney and it took 22 years to open its first Adelaide outpost, but founders Danny and Nick Palumbo grew up in Adelaide. Ipso facto, Adelaide’s got Messina in its blood.

The year after the first Adelaide branch of the gelato shop opened in Kent Town, its Sydney-born bakery offshoot Shadow Baking moved to town. The bakery began as a market stall in Sydney, run by the Messina team – now there are several Sydney outposts and a new bakery in Glenelg. It’s headed by one of the bakery’s founders, Remi Talbot, who moved to Adelaide for a lifestyle similar to his French upbringing.

The pastries go beyond the expected fare. Of course there are croissants, brownies, cookies and scrolls, but there are also more inventive items. Expect blueberry cheesecake tarts; pandan and coconut brioche; eggplant parm-inspired scrolls; Vegemite, avo and fermented chilli scrolls; and deeply savoury loaded focaccia loaves.

Super Americano, Frewville

Peter De Marco has been involved in some of Adelaide’s most popular dining spots over the past two decades (Pizza e Mozzarella Bar, Borsa, Chicken & Pig). Earlier this year, he opened Super Americano, a casual brunch spot by day that operates as a restaurant three nights a week. It serves homestyle Italian eats including croquettes with tonnato mayo, veal scallopini, and a range of toasted sandwiches on simple white bread. De Marco’s passion project – a four-day proved and woodfired bread – is used to make panini stuffed with veal meatballs, sugo and fior di latte; chicken cotoletta; Tuscan roast beef rib; and sopressa salami and pickled green tomatoes. There is also a string of crowd-pleasing pizzas. Seasonal dishes and wines are scrawled on chalkboards; pantry items and a curation of Italian wines are also available to purchase in-store.

Yuku Do, CBD

Opened by Malaysian-born Japanophile Anjelin Lim, Yuku Do is designed to echo a Japanese convenience store. Make no mistake though, this is not a 7-Eleven. Yuku Do is a space where quality, not quantity, is king and a three-ingredient sandwich can feel as indulgent as a full tasting menu. The compact menu centres on a tight clutch of sandos – served on shokupan, baked daily to Lim’s exact specs – as well as generously packed hand-formed onigiri, and Japanese sides. The drinks list includes coffee from Melbourne’s Dukes Coffee Roasters, but the star of the show is a house-blended matcha that’s layered and surprisingly mellow. Yuku Do may be designed for a fast-paced crowd with grab-and-go dishes, but its approach is intentionally slow and thoughtful.

Honourable Mentions

It’s hard to know where to place dessert stores: they exist in a league of their own, they’re not really cafes and you seldom dine in, but they contribute some much-needed sweetness to the local scene.

Shmochi’s first bricks-and-mortar store only opened this year, but you’ve probably already tried its signature dish. The team is known for chewy mochi doughnuts, which have long been a mainstay on the festival scene. Alongside the doughnuts, Shmochi has soft-serve gelato with house-baked mix-ins in nostalgic flavours like lychee Eton mess or durian birthday cake gelato.

Also keeping things cool are Alex Crawford and Stephanie Taylor of Sugar Man. Sugar Man’s first retail store opened on Hutt Street in 2022 and quickly earned a cult following. It was a double-edged sword: on one hand it was great to be so popular, but on the other it placed a lot of pressure on the team, so they decided to pivot and opened Sugar Man Gelato in October.

Sugar Man has a focus on flavours made from scratch, without pastes, gels or colours. Flavours include a strawberry sorbet made with Adelaide Hills strawberries; a yuzu, salted coconut milk and locally grown Thai basil scoop; and a salted butter caramel on sourdough toast flavour made with Jersey butter from The Dairyman Barossa and hunks of toasted bread.

Additional reporting by Stacey Caruso, Kurtis Eichler, Jessica Galletly, Nadia Luksich, Emily Taliangis and Tim Watts.