Hidden and Underrated Cafes in Tunis That Most Tourists Miss

The masks and brass trays in the souks get all the attention, but if you ask any designer, photographer, or long-term expat working in Tunis, they will tell you the real secret to the city lives in its less polished corners. I have spent the last six years with my laptop in one hand and a coffee glass in the other, hunting down the hidden cafes in Tunis that never show up in the hotel brochure pile. These are the spaces where the mint is always fresh, the chair creaks have personality, and the owner eventually learns your name without asking for it. Consider this your personal, slightly unsanctioned map to the real drinking spots scattered from the Medina to the sea.

The Old Medina: Where the Alley Maze Runs on Espresso

1. Café El Ali (Rue des Tanneurs)

You have to pass the copper beaters and the smell of hammered metal to find this place. Café El Ali is really one square room tiled in faded green and white, with a doorway so low that the delivery men have to duck. A man in a wool cap has been pulling the lever on a rickety old espresso machine here since the mid-1990s, and he measures the coffee by eye before he even asks what you want. This is the staff break room of the Medina, not a showpiece, and that is exactly why it stays on my rotation.

What to Order: The quarter liter of fresh mint tea, no sugar unless you ask twice. They press the mint down into the teapot with a wooden spoon, and it smells like a garden gone wild.
Best Time: Thursday morning around 10:30 AM, because that is when the zellige tile workers come off their shift and fill the back benches with