I arrived in Pune with a pretty standard itinerary. Shaniwar Wada, the Aga Khan Palace, long day excursion to Sinhagad Fort if the weather permits. What I was not expecting was that there would be plenty of cafés that would be of more interest to me than any tourist site or attraction could ever be. So rather than moving on to my next destination, I ended up stopping at cafés for longer than intended.
It started with a wrong turn in Koregaon Park
I was looking for a particular road in Koregaon Park on my first afternoon and took a wrong turn that left me outside a café with a garden I could see through an iron gate. I went in mostly because I was already lost and might as well be lost with coffee.
The experience lasted two hours. Coffee was good, particularly as it arrived with a small card explaining where the coffee beans come from, and how they were roasted. The coffee itself was quite good and the outdoor space received enough shade so that it felt comfortable.
I had no idea then that this was going to become a pattern.
Koregaon Park as a Café neighbourhood
Koregaon Park has developed a café density that rivals anything I’ve seen in Indian cities except for maybe certain pockets of Bangalore and Mumbai. The concentration here feels shaped partly by the significant expat and returning diaspora population in the area and partly by the proximity to the Osho International Meditation Resort, which brings in international visitors with specific tastes.
I walked the main roads and the smaller lanes off them across two afternoons, stopping at three or four different places each time. The range is wider than you’d expect. Some small, quiet spots feel like someone’s living room with an espresso machine. You might also find larger, more designed spaces with selected playlists and curated coffee menus. And few have been there long enough to have become institutions without trying to be.
The one thing they share is a willingness to let you stay. Pune seems to have absorbed the idea that a café is a place to spend time rather than a place that runs on tight schedules.
Deccan and Camp: Different versions of the same city
I spent my morning in Deccan Gymkhana, a locality with its own historical café culture developed around many student towns. The cafés in the area differ from those in Koregaon Park in that they don’t focus heavily on aesthetics but rather pay attention to having a strong cup of filter coffee and snacks. Some of the old Irani cafés have been operating for years, and being in one of these cafés has given me an immediate feeling of connecting with old Pune.
The Camp area, formally known as MG Road and surroundings, sits between these two versions of the city and has a café culture that reflects its mixed character. The old bakeries here have been providing their customers with a large variety of bread and biscuits from a time when most locals were not even born.
Where to stay for the café circuit
Several hotels in Pune sit in or near Koregaon Park, which makes the most sense as a base if the café culture is part of why you’re going. Being within walking distance of the main café concentration means the afternoon wandering that produced my best discoveries happens naturally rather than requiring a plan. The Deccan area is worth a separate half-day regardless of where you’re based, since the Irani café experience there is genuinely distinct from what Koregaon Park offers and worth the auto ride.
I left Pune having seen less of the formal sightseeing list than I’d originally planned and feeling completely fine about it. The city had offered a different kind of experience than the one I’d come for, and the cafés had been a more honest introduction to how Pune actually lives than most of the attractions on my original list would have been.