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Made for · Cafe hoppers

For cafe hoppers: every cup, every corner.

Cafe hopping is three cafes, two pastries and one perfect iced latte you will never find again — unless you kept it. Here is how to plan a good cafe hop, and how to remember which cafe made the cortado worth crossing town for.

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In short

Cafe hopping means visiting several cafes in one outing to try their drinks, pastries and spaces. To remember them, snap the cup and the plate at each stop: PlateDiary cuts out the drink and the pastry as separate saves, files them under the cafe, and puts every cafe you’ve visited on a map.

Checked

Drinks

Drinks are saves too.

Every save can be food, drink or other, so the iced matcha and the basque cheesecake beside it are two saves under one cafe. One tap sets a save as a drink, and the map can show drinks only. If the drink comes ten minutes before the pastry, Dish by dish keeps the camera open and stacks both.

Your order

Your usual at every cafe.

Open a cafe’s page and Your usual is waiting: the drink you order most there. Your menu here lists everything else you’ve had, with counts. Write the exact order in the note — “iced oat cortado, half sweet, extra shot” — and you can read it straight to the barista next time.

Three stops

How to plan a cafe hop.

Pick three cafes within walking distance — a few Melbourne laneways, one long street in Brooklyn, a corner of Shoreditch — and check their closing days first. Share every pastry so you still want the third one.

A three-stop cafe hop template
What to orderWhy
Stop 1, morningA hot drink and the pastry they’re known forPastries sell out first
Stop 2, middaySomething cold, one slice to sharePace the caffeine
Stop 3, afternoonA non-coffee: matcha, ube latte, hot chocolateSleep tonight
Between stopsA short walkCafes in one neighbourhood keep the day easy

The map

A map of every cafe.

Each cafe pins itself on your map with a count of visits. Can’t remember the name of the place with the good cheesecake? Search cheesecake and every cafe you’ve had one comes up. Search also reads your notes and tags, so “window seat” or “quiet” works too.

One page

A cafe hop as one collection.

Heart the best cups into Favorites, which is free. With Premium, make a collection for a whole hop — “Lisbon cafes, October” — and it opens in Play, with every cup and pastry on one page.

Copy it

A cafe hopping checklist.

  • Three cafes, walking distance, closing days checked.
  • Go early for pastries, late for empty tables.
  • One coffee, one cold drink, one non-coffee.
  • Share every pastry.
  • Snap the cup before the first sip — latte art doesn’t wait.
  • Note the order exactly, and the seat you’d pick next time.
  • Charge your phone at stop two if they have plugs.

Honestly

Not a brewing app (and that’s fine).

PlateDiary doesn’t keep beans, grind sizes or brew ratios. If you want a coffee notebook for the kitchen, a brewing app is the better pick. PlateDiary is for the cafes you go to: the cup, the cake, the place and the friend across the table.

Questions

Questions people ask.

Can I save just a drink?

Yes. Snap the cup on its own and set the save as a drink. The map can filter to drinks only.

How do I find a cafe I liked last year?

Search by the cafe’s name, the drink, or a word from your note, or open the map and filter to drinks.

Can I note my exact drink order?

Yes. Every save has an optional name and note for the milk, sweetness and shots. Drink names you have used before come back as one-tap chips.

What does cafe hopping mean?

Visiting several cafes in one day or afternoon, usually trying a drink or pastry at each. It is a favourite weekend plan in cities from Seoul to Melbourne to Manila.