From Caffe Kilim to Wild Valentine, here are the best coffee shops in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Coffee shops in Portsmouth are rarely just coffee shops. Wild Valentine is a floristry. Stroll doubles as a wine bar. Caffe Kilim links rugs and Turkish delights.

Even though Portsmouth coffee is good enough to stand on its own, sidelines are how cafes here express themselves, mixtape moods, and charm clientele.

Caffe Kilim

Caffe Kilim often wakes to the first yawns of dawn. Soft early morning light gapes along a wall blanketed in rugs. Dhurries, masked as mats, stretch across tabletops. Hot Apple Chaiders are a gentle release from winter’s cold. In the spring, specials spin in flavors of pomegranate and pistachio.

Turkish Cypriot guitarist Okan Ersan’s music pours in, as do Ido Tatlises’ pop hits. The robust scent of Turkish coffee clings to the air. Polaroids of local students reveal how deeply appreciated Caffe Kilim is and how this little drop of Turkey has been part of Portsmouth’s landscape for thirty-plus years.

Stroll Café & Wine Bar

You know those days when you feel an intense itch to work out of a coffee shop? Stroll Cafe is the cure for those bouts of out-of-home productivity. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame one side of Stroll’s facade, and the backs of open laptops are mirrored in the glass. Stroll’s floors are office gray. Seats are sturdy; tables are Starbucksesque.

After 5 PM, the air smells less like maple. Endless orders of Stroll Maple Lattes (espresso made with La Mulita’s locally-roasted Colombian coffee beans) are swapped for oak and citrus fragrant wines. Stroll shifts from a working space to a community place.

Kaffee Vonsolln

Light doesn’t sweep the seats at Kaffee Vonsolln. There’s a big window, sure, but this Portsmouth coffee shop is long with impermeable brick walls and a recessed ceiling. Getting to the drip coffee bar requires snake-like, shimmying movements between curls of crowds. Because most people in Portsmouth know Kaffee Vonsolln is where you go to feel the hot burn of espresso in your mouth.

In 2010, Kaffee Vonsolln was a German cafe run by a German baker. Half a decade later, the shop was bought by a family who wanted to continue building on the store’s existing foundation. Coffee is roasted in-house. Drinks are precise, and cappuccinos feel like a scientifically resolute distribution of espresso, milk, and foam.

Elephantine Bakery

Elephantine is a bakery first. The pastry case makes that clear: braided brioche, almond-capped croissants, an (almost) slanting pile of cookies. Drip coffee (and cappuccinos) are a welcome palate wash if you don’t want to fully surrender to a heady sugar rush.

Wild Valentine

Wild Valentine is flush with bridal pastels. Loose stalks are arranged in vases; roses and carnations fan around the rims. The coffee shop smells like sweet florals and spring specials. Chatty baristas and cheeky stationery boost serotonin.

This Portsmouth coffee shop is a magnet for freelancers and graphic designers looking for a remote workspace, but you heard this from us first: go to Wild Valentine as an act of self-care, to place your favorite journal on the window-side, wooden counter and scribble away, breaking for sips of Wild Valentine’s creamy lavender vanilla lattes.

More Coffee Shops In Portsmouth

more places for coffee in Portsmouth

• Cup Of Joe Cafe: the steamed milk in our drinks had sandy profiles, but the brick-backed bar-style seats were perfect for a remote work sesh (and I love that they have open mic nights on Wednesdays)
• White Heron: community-cafe serving sustainably-sourced coffee, hot teas, and vegan-friendly pastries
• La Maison Navarre: go for their macarons, indulge in their affogatos
• NOA Cafe: for those who love fair trade coffee and avocado toast