Sofá Café

Sofá Café is one of São Paulo's best-known specialty coffee names. The first shop opened in Pinheiros after more than nine months of planning, and two years later the brand was reshaped as a specialty coffee business that selects and roasts its own beans. Founder Diego Gonzales has since grown it into a franchise with six stores in Brazil and a branch in Boston in the United States, and it supplies coffee to companies such as Google and Santander.

The approach is summed up in the company's own formula: careful selection of specialty coffee, precision in roasting and precision in extraction. It works only with coffees that score above 80 points on the Specialty Coffee Association scale, roasts all of its coffee in-house and blends beans to reach particular flavour profiles. Ask the baristas about the beans being used that day and how they suit espresso or filter methods, as brewing technique is a big part of the Sofá philosophy and is taught on its barista course.

The brand has collected a long list of awards. Veja São Paulo's Comer & Beber guide ranked it the second-best coffee shop in the city in several editions between 2014 and 2017, its Rio branch was named the best café in Rio de Janeiro by the same guide, and Revista Cafeterias & Cia listed it among the ten best coffee shops in Brazil in 2018. Its baristas have also placed second and third in a São Paulo barista competition.

One of the most interesting parts of the business is its social project. Through Fazedores de Café, created by Diego Gonzales, Sofá trains young people in vulnerable situations as baristas free of charge, and the company reports that 90 per cent of graduates from its fifth class found work. In 2024 the project won second place in a São Paulo social gastronomy award.

The shop on Rua Jaguaribe in the centre is open Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 18:30 and on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10:00 to 18:00; the café posts holiday changes on Instagram. Another unit at Galeria AG serves the gallery's staff and guests only. Sofá Café suits coffee enthusiasts and anyone looking for a reliable espresso while exploring the centre, and its commitment to training makes it a café worth supporting.