Ultimo Coffee looks like a trap the moment it appears on the menu. In Pokémon Legends: Z-A, most café drinks cost a few hundred Pokédollars. At Café Ultimo, a single cup is ₽100,000.
The obvious question is whether that price hides a powerful effect or a secret reward. It doesn’t. Ultimo Coffee behaves like every other café drink in Lumiose City, with the same core benefits and no hidden bonuses.
Where to find Café Ultimo and Ultimo Coffee
| Location | Area | Region | Fast travel role | Drink sold | Price (₽) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Café Ultimo | Jaune Sector 7, North Boulevard / Wild Zone 15 | Kalos, Lumiose City | Acts as a travel spot once unlocked | Ultimo Coffee | 100,000 |
Café Ultimo operates like the other cafés spread across Lumiose City. Once you reach Jaune Sector 7 and Wild Zone 15, it becomes accessible, and its marker can be used as a travel point into that Wild Zone. That fast travel unlock is tied to the café’s location, not to buying Ultimo Coffee itself.
You do not have to purchase the drink to use Café Ultimo as a travel spot.
What Ultimo Coffee actually does
Ultimo Coffee’s effects are straightforward and identical to much cheaper drinks:
| Effect | Scope | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Heal party | Entire team | Restores HP like resting at any café |
| Raise friendship | Lead Pokémon | Only the active party leader gains friendship |
| Photo-style hangout | Lead Pokémon | Your active Pokémon is brought out for the café scene |
Every Lumiose café shares this same pattern: buy a drink, heal your team, and nudge the lead Pokémon’s friendship upwards. Café Ultimo simply charges an extreme premium for the same package.
Friendship increases from Ultimo Coffee are not stronger than that from ordinary coffees or teas. Trainers testing newly caught Pokémon see the same number of café visits needed to unlock friendship evolutions, whether they use Café Ultimo or a standard spot like Café Pokémon-Amie, especially when items like Soothe Bell are involved.
How Ultimo Coffee compares to other cafés
Across Lumiose City, there are 17 cafés, each with its own menu and price band. Drinks normally sit between about ₽250 and ₽1,500. Nouveau Café, for example, sells basic roasts and tea for as little as ₽100–300, while places like Café Woof creep closer to ₽1,500 for premium blends.
Café Ultimo is the clear outlier:
| Café | Typical drink price (₽) | Heals party? | Raises friendship? | Special mechanics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nouveau Café | 100–300 | Yes | Yes (lead Pokémon) | Budget option; multiple truck locations |
| Café Pokémon-Amie | 300–800 | Yes | Yes (lead Pokémon) | Common choice for friendship evolutions |
| Café Kizuna / Soleil / others | 500–1,000+ | Yes | Yes (lead Pokémon) | Different flavor text, same mechanics |
| Café Ultimo | 100,000 | Yes | Yes (lead Pokémon) | No extra benefit over standard cafés |
The experience at Café Ultimo looks nice and feels exclusive, but mechanically you get the same heal and the same friendship tick you would from a ₽500 tea elsewhere in the city.
Is Ultimo Coffee worth buying for friendship evolutions?
Some Pokémon in Legends: Z-A still evolve through high friendship. Cafés are one way to get there, but the cost difference matters.
Roughly speaking:
- A standard café drink plus a Soothe Bell can bring a newly caught Pokémon to evolution-ready friendship in only a few outings.
From a cost-per-point perspective, Ultimo Coffee is the most inefficient method in the game. Cheaper cafés deliver the same friendship boost for under 1 percent of the price.
For friendship evolutions, Ultimo Coffee offers no practical advantage. It is functionally a ₽100,000 heal-and-friendship tick you can replicate almost anywhere else in Lumiose.
Other ways to raise friendship more efficiently
Players looking to evolve friendship-based Pokémon typically rotate through methods like:
- Using inexpensive cafés located near regular routes and Wild Zones
- Equipping Soothe Bell-like items to amplify gains
- Feeding EV-reducing berries that also raise friendship
- Keeping the Pokémon in the active party during battles and exploration
All of these options stack or repeat at a fraction of Ultimo Coffee’s price. Even players with a strong income from repeat Z-A Royale runs get more long-term value from spending on items, TMs, and Mega Stones than splurging repeatedly at Café Ultimo.
So why does Ultimo Coffee exist at all?
Ultimo Coffee is intentionally extravagant. It leans into a running joke in Lumiose City: high-end cafés, tourist markups, and the idea of spending an absurd amount of money on a single drink. The name “Ultimo” — “last” or “final” in several Romance languages — plays into the idea that this is the ultimate, over-the-top cup.
In practice, Ultimo Coffee serves three roles:
- Bragging rights – Being able to say you ordered the ₽100,000 drink is its own small flex.
- Soft challenge check – It tempts completionists and high-rollers who are already earning hundreds of thousands per Z-A Royale run.
- Flavor piece – It reinforces Lumiose as a city obsessed with fashion, cafés, and conspicuous consumption.
What it does not do is unlock extra scenes, titles, hidden encounters, or permanent upgrades. Players reporting on their purchases see nothing beyond the usual café animation, heal, and friendship bump.
When, if ever, should you buy Ultimo Coffee?
For most of the story, Ultimo Coffee is essentially a money sink. The opportunity cost is huge:
- Multiple Mega Stones, mints, or key battle items
- Large stocks of Poké Balls and healing items
- Services like EV resets that have a permanent competitive impact
The situations where Ultimo Coffee makes any sense are narrow:
- You are deep into post-game, already own the upgrades and items you care about, and regularly pull in six figures from Z-A Royale.
- You enjoy the roleplay of visiting the most elite café in Kalos with a favorite partner Pokémon.
- You want to intentionally engage with every high-price “luxury” option in Lumiose, from clothes to coffee, purely for completion or personal satisfaction.
Even in those cases, it’s a luxury purchase, not a strategic one.
Ultimo Coffee is designed to make you ask whether any one consumable in Pokémon Legends: Z-A could be worth ₽100,000. The honest answer is no. It heals, it boosts friendship on your lead Pokémon, and it lets you say you tried the most expensive drink in Lumiose City. Mechanically, though, a ₽500 café order on the next street does the same job.
