Café restaurants in Australia
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A
Three Monkeys Coffee House
A family business for 14 years, Three Monkeys serves it up supersized – piping hot coffee and spicy chai come in soup bowls. Hide away in the cosy den, or wolf down your chocolate cake on the bench outside.
reviewed
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B
Fatboy’s Café
The $4 breakfast at Fatboy’s is legendary: eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and toast served any time (add just $1 after 5pm). It’s easily the best value hangover cure in town and it’s located smack bang in the action in the Brunswick St Mall.
reviewed
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C
Cornucopia Museum Café
Appended to the museum and gallery, this café makes for a good stop while you're in the 'hood. Maybe share a trio of dips, commenting on how good a dip would be, while overlooking Vestey's Beach. Try a salad or pasta special, remarking on how special that collection of artwork you've just walked around is. It's also good for a late breakfast, for the children and for meaty mains.
reviewed
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D
Blue Water Pizza
Bright and brassy, this lively waterfront eatery is the place to come for wood-fired pizza, particularly on a Monday when all pies are a bargain $14.
reviewed
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E
Small Block
In this village-like strip of shops, Small Block acts as the community centre; its neighbourly drop-in and stay-awhile vibe is a hub for local activity. Big, beautiful breakfasts (eggs and otherwise) are worth writing home about. Salvaged service-station signage and concrete floors, plus warm and efficient service combine to make a super environment in which to write postcards home too.
reviewed
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F
Café Mediterranean Bar Doppio
Alice’s locals duck down this laneway for huge and wholesome home-style breakfasts (eggs any style, pancakes), pita pizzas, burgers, pies and salads. It’s also a favoured meeting place for well-made coffee or fresh-pressed juice, either in the shade of the covered arcade or inside with local-events flyers wallpapering the walls.
reviewed
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G
Blue Water Café
The huge portions are a major drawcard at this bustling beach café adorned with surfboards. Choose between pasta, burgers, wraps, pide and grills, mostly under around A$20 but up to around A$29 for a juicy sirloin.
reviewed
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H
Little Larder
It's worth searching out this lovely café, and not just because it makes damn fine coffee. Try the thick French toast or pesto scrambled eggs and you'll soon understand what all the real fuss is about.
reviewed
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I
Brother Baba Budan
Cute city outpost of indie roasters St. Ali. There’s coffee, of course, and only the odd ruglach or biscuit to distract you. They also sell beans and a good range of coffee-related equipment.
reviewed
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J
Bourke Street Bakery
It hasn’t been around forever, but the Bourke St Bakery has quickly become an essential Surry Hills experience, offering up a mean selection of pastries, cakes, croissants, tarts, quiches and organic breads, all baked with that rare combo of deliciousness, dedication and delight. If you’re hungover, the coffee here will right your rudder.
reviewed
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K
Montague Foodstore
This sunlit café is the friendly, corner store gone gourmet. The Montague serves a range of breakfasts and lunches, incorporating its own breads, jams and relishes. The croque-monsieur (French-style toasted ham and cheese sandwich) will keep you going for days, or, if you insist on a healthier option, the wattle-seed granola is really good. Filled baguettes, salads, cakes and daily specials round out the selection.
reviewed
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L
Single Origin Roasters
These impassioned, bouncing-off-the-walls caffeine fiends love to chat about the fair-trade or environmental credentials of their beans. The food’s simple but tasty: muffins, banana bread, baked beans, poached eggs and bircher muesli. Unshaven graphic artists roll cigarettes at the little outdoor tables in the bricky Chicago-esque hollows of deepest Surry Hills.
reviewed
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M
Degraves Espresso Bar
The rickety cinema seating and fashionable gloom make Degraves a quintessential Melbourne laneway experience. If you've overindulged in that other Melbourne laneway experience, the hip little bar with no signage, beat your hangover with poached eggs or French toast with maple syrup from the all-day breakfast menu. Or just pull up a pew for an always-good coffee.
reviewed
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N
Gravy Train
You wouldn't chug across town to get here, but you'd certainly pull in for a bite or coffee if in the area. Gravy Train is the coalface of Yarravillagers: students, workers and pram-pushers all converge on the bright dining room or roofless courtyard. Some artful savoury dishes accompany staple café fare, and there's a good selection of sweet things too.
reviewed
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O
Hopetoun Tea Rooms
For five generations, ladies and 'nice' families have been nibbling pinwheel sandwiches here, taking tea (pinkies raised) and delicately polishing off a lamington. Hopetoun's venerable status, arcade location and pursed-lip air make afternoon or morning tea here refreshing indeed - the antithesis of Melbourne's constant coffee-taken-in-hip-laneways shtick.
reviewed
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P
Cafe Fidama
With so many world flavours available, Fidama has thrown open the food-group classification to include influences from the Mediterranean, Middle East and Asia. Dexterous dishes are served up in sleek surrounds - all dark wood, banquettes and bentwood chairs. Locals love it here, so if you find yourself in the 'hood, it's best to book ahead.
reviewed
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Q
Park Café
With McEvoy St’s fumy factory fray just a block away, this surprising little mod cafe is a great spot to take time out from shopping with a glass of wine on the sunny terrace. The food’s fresh and fabulous with Mediterranean pep (try the seafood and potato risotto and the custard tarts), and the coffee’s excellent.
reviewed
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R
Barzura
Frequented by retired Australian cricketers in dark sunglasses, Barzura has views that have to be the best of any cafe in Sydney (if not the world!). The sunbaked stretch north along Coogee Beach to Bondi is a stunner, as are deliciously uncomplicated salads, pides, pasta dishes and generous breakfasts, all served with a smile.
reviewed
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S
Bar Coluzzi
Legendary Coluzzi has been here since 1957 and still attracts an odd-ball mix of old Italian gents, judges, Kings Cross dealers, Darlinghurst gays, students and suits. The food is fine (bagels, focaccias and pastries) but what you’re here for is the spoon-standing-up-straight-in-the-cup coffee.
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Ray
Ray mashes up the flavour legacy of the neighbourhood with the tastes of the vanguard residents. The big communal table is the place to try labna (yoghurt cheese) and rose jam on toasted pide, tomato and bocconcini bread and really good coffee.
reviewed
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U
Jellyfish
There are much better places for coffee, but this similarly surfboard-strewn café is a good choice for a light lunch or heftier dinner. Keep an eye on the surf as you munch on salt and pepper squid or a tasty smoked salmon and avocado wrap (around A$11).
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My Café
This small licensed café serving bruschetta, bagels and burgers attracts a breakfast crowd keen to bring their office wherever they go. With sunny sidewalk tables it is also popular for lingering lunches and espresso junkies throughout the day.
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W
South Hobart Food Store
A little way out of the city centre – sure – but a trip to the Food Store is well worth the effort. This old shopfront cafe is full of booths, bookish students, brunching friends and kids under the tables.
reviewed
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X
Book Kitchen
Sunny pavement tables, attentive service, walls of foody books, a braised Wagyu beef-and-mustard sandwich and a Book Kitchen bloody mary - sometimes life just comes together perfectly doesn't it?
reviewed
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Y
Red Dog
Join the throng at this Australiana-decorated place pumping out decent coffee and hearty breakfasts (eggs, pancakes or the whole-hog ‘bushman’s breakfast’), and a range of chicken burgers.
reviewed
