Pastry and Coffee at Banette

A warm little roaster-cafe on the UBC campus doing proper espresso, fresh pastries, and house bagels, an easy first stop before the gardens or the beach.

Emeri does specialty matcha and soft serve at 2833 Main, a 20 minute stop that works as dessert rather than the main event.

A century-old Port Moody building reborn as a cafe-slash-art-gallery, with vinyl, plants, cortados and a built-in conversation starter on every wall.

Vancouver's original multi-roaster, where the coffee list rotates weekly and the baristas take your pour-over more seriously than you take most things.

A leafy Strathcona corner store that pours a proper flat white between the produce and the local doughnuts, village-shop charm and all.

A flower-strewn cafe in Gastown's flatiron that pours espresso by day and natural wine by night, so one date can quietly become three.

A cosy Yaletown roastery with the one thing Yaletown rarely offers a coffee date: enough seats to actually settle in and talk.

A Gastown roastery dressed like a vintage railway carriage, pouring the kind of coffee that makes you forget you had somewhere to be.

Downtown's chocolaterie-patisserie on Alberni: thick drinking chocolate, a macaron case that looks like jewellery, and cheap enough to be completely spontaneous.

A converted Gastown warehouse turned sunlit bakery-cafe, where daily sourdough, good espresso and reclaimed-furniture charm make lingering the entire plan.

A gloriously over-the-top Italian coffee palace on the Drive, all marble, chandeliers and Roman statues, running since 1976 and taking exactly zero notes.

A blush-pink micro-roastery on Broadway that roasts in the corner and looks like a date already in progress.

An award-winning timber pavilion shaped like a flower, where the room is so good the coffee almost has to apologize for stealing focus.

A husband-and-wife Italian bakery-cafe on the Drive where a morning cornetto and an evening aperitivo are the same great date, twice.