Cafés in Chihkan Tower & Confucius Temple

Fuzhong Street and the Nanmen Road side

Opposite the temple's red wall, the Pan-gong stone archway (泮宮石坊), built in the Qianlong era, was once the temple's outermost entrance; it now opens onto Fuzhong Street (府中街), about 200 m long.⁵ A 2024 design-week market here was themed on 做十六 (zuò shíliù), a coming-of-age rite at 16 that is Tainan's own.⁵ On the street, COCOCHA is at No. 107, Ertztogo at No. 19 and 綠町抹茶專門店, a matcha shop, at No. 58.

Revival Coffee Roasters is at Nanmen Road 37, the Tainan Art Museum's address.⁶ The museum's Building 1 went up in 1930 as the Tainan Police Department and is the oldest surviving police station building in Taiwan.⁷

Hayashi Department Store and the museum on Zhongyi Road

Hayashi (林百貨), at Zhongyi Road Section 2, No. 63, opened on 5 December 1932; its founder, Hayashi Hōichi (林方一) from Yamaguchi Prefecture, died five days later.⁸ Its lift took 12 people when new and still runs in the original shaft, cut down to a five-person car in the 2013 restoration.⁸ The store reopened on 14 June 2014.⁹

The fifth floor is given over to food, with 林珈琲 (Hayashi Café) and 山海豆花, a tofu-pudding counter; the sixth holds a shop, the rooftop shrine and an observation deck.¹⁰ The store opens 11:00–21:00 daily.¹⁰ Down the road, Building 2 of the Tainan Art Museum, designed with Shigeru Ban after the flower of the flame tree, opened with the museum on 27 January 2019.⁷

Its fifth floor holds 南美春室 (The POOL), a glass-walled café you can visit without a museum ticket, open 10:00–18:00 and until 20:30 on Saturdays, closed Mondays.¹¹ 褐 umber, on the second floor of the same building, names its pour-overs after the palettes of six Renaissance painters.¹²

Wu Garden, Minquan Road and Gongyuan Road

Wu Garden (吳園) was bought around 1828 by the salt merchant Wu Shangxin, and the Tainan Assembly Hall went up along its southern edge in 1911.¹³ In the garden, 十八卯茶屋 occupies the wooden 柳下食堂 (Yanagishita Shokudō), a Japanese-run restaurant completed on 30 October 1918. Tea master 葉東泰 spent nearly half a year turning it into a tea room; the tatami room upstairs shows old tea ware.¹⁴

Minquan Road Section 2 keeps going into the evening: 甘單咖啡 in Lane 4 opens 13:30–21:30 daily, and 道南館 at No. 248 stays open until 21:00 Monday to Saturday. On Gongyuan Road, 叁沌 Sandun Coffee at No. 61 spreads over three floors joined by a 53-year-old wooden spiral stair, with a gallery on the middle floor.¹² 老街茶房, a tea room, is at No. 133.

Kaishan Road, Weimin Street and the late shift

The Kaishan Road lanes hide some of the smallest rooms. 山洞 sits at the top of a stairway beside an old print shop's iron gate, in Lane 52.¹² 錫鼓 Tin Drum, in Alley 39 of Lane 35, opens 10:00–17:30 except Tuesdays, with outdoor tables, bar seats and an upper floor; seats are few, so booking is advised.¹¹ On Weimin Street, 小巷裡的拾壹號 in Lane 143 roasts its own beans and closes on Wednesdays and Thursdays.¹¹

For a late cup, Akatsuki (曉咖啡), a roasting studio founded in 2009, pours from 13:00 to midnight in Lane 84 of Zhongyi Road Section 1.¹⁵ 窟仔 Kula, in Lane 158 of Zhongyi Road Section 2, is known as much for braised pork rice as for coffee; its owner won Taiwan's title at the WCE latte art championship twice.¹² White do 白做研究所 in Lane 3 of Kaishan Road serves until 22:00.