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All About… Ramona's
It's all about the vibe in this groovy café, with cool art on the walls and a fish-tank fashioned from a 1950s TV set. It's a great place to kick back with a free newspaper, coffee and a slice of their exquisite cheesecake. Sam I Am fans should try the green eggs and ham (scrambled with pesto).
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Bakery Café
It doesn't look like much, but this little bakery serves satisfying breakfasts, fresh baguettes and filling pasta meals. It's well positioned for the backpackers down the road and a friendly change from other too-cool cafés on the strip.
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Barzura Café and Ristorante
Airy and modern, this popular cafe offers pleasant meals any time of day. Breakfast means corn fritters with bacon, tomato and avocado; lunch may be an open salmon sandwich with capers; dinner tempts with grilled lamb's liver with pancetta or the chorizo and saffron risotto. The specials board offers more interesting choices, and outdoor tables are pure gold.
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Beanrush
A small blue box with a little outdoor space, this café serves great coffee made from wonderfully exotic, organic beans; the snacks are mighty fine, too. Worth a visit if your engine needs revving.
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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.
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Bourke Street Bakery
Foodies go nuts about this little place, and quite right too. The fresh baking is impeccable, particularly the sourdough bread. Grab a seat and a coffee and pick from the alluring array of pizza slices, pies, tarts and pastries.
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Caffe Salina
Friendly Salina's is on to a winner with its long brunches and hangover specials (bacon, egg, steak, roast tomatoes, chips and a glass of iced Berocca). Who doesn't want hearty food, great coffee and soothing seaside when you're feeling poorly? Delicious, healthy picnic baskets to enjoy across the road at Bronte Beach can be ordered.
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Campos
Trying to squeeze into crowded Campos, king of Sydney's bean-scene, can be a challenge. Caffeine fiends come from miles around - hat-wearing students, broadsheet literati, window-seat daydreamers and doctors on a break from the hospital - all gagging for a shot of 'Campos Superior' blend. The closest competition is in northern Italy.
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Danks Street Depot
Upon its opening this industrial-chic café quickly became a brunch-time gourmet favourite, with the creamed eggs with roasted mushrooms and truffle oil (around A$18 ) assuming near legendary status.
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Digi.Kaf
It's great to find an internet café that hasn't neglected the café bit. This one promises 'coffee, cake and cyberspace' and delivers much more than that, including a cracking brunch and cool surrounds. There's a tiny side lane for al fresco dining and nary a gaming nerd to be seen.
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Dov @ Delectica
Opening onto the nicest part of leafy Victoria St, Dov has a vibe that will tempt you to linger all morning over your newspaper and coffee. The menu varies throughout the day, starting with reasonably priced brekkie (around A$5 - A$14 14) and lunch (check out the savoury tart of the day) before culminating in substantial evening meals from the ever-changing blackboard menu.
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Fair Trade Coffee Company
Unashamedly hippie and slightly grungy, this is great spot for guilt-free coffee and a community atmosphere. The food raids a number of cuisines, from a Mediterranean platter to Colombian arepas , nasi goreng and Moroccan meatballs. Serves are tasty and substantial.
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Gertrude & Alice
This secondhand bookshop/café is so un-Bondi - there's not a model or surfer in sight! Students and academics hang out reading, sipping chai tea and acting like Americans in Paris. Join them for a mezze platter and theological discussion around communal tables in shambolic book-lined rooms.
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Green's Café
This institution-green neighbourhood café has a 1950s nana-chic aesthetic and is prone to doing oddball things like hosting tea towel and apron exhibitions. Devonshire teas are served, but the menu is contemporary café fare, with excellent all-day breakfasts (try the delicious parmesan scrambled eggs).
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Jed's Foodstore
With a skateboard and a single trainer hanging from the roof, this sunny corner café is the epitome of slacker cool. Breakfast treats include a delicious quesadilla and the popular breakfast bowl (mountains of berries, muesli and yoghurt). Toasted sambos (sandwiches to the uninitiated) go by the names of Rock Hudson and Errol Flynn (a hammier version).
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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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Katipo Coffee House Deluxe
Named after New Zealand's only poisonous spider this unassuming café offers a little extra bite in everything it does. Even the tap water is subtly flavoured with fresh fruit and delivered with a smile. For breakfast try the Nouveau Hippy Vego Feast - a banquet of eggs, herb-roasted tomato, garlic mushrooms, kumera and wilted greens.
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La Buvette
Like its sister Spring next door, La Buvette is absolutely teeny. That doesn't stop it being crammed with the beautiful, the famous and the guppies (gay urban professionals in the latest designer sunglasses). The menu features salads, sandwiches and crepes, but our favourite is the baked eggs with chorizo. Excellent coffee.
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Old Fish Shop Café
In a converted fish shop (no prizes for figuring that out), this is Newtown's tattooed, dreadlocked, caffeine-hungry hub. Friendly pierced staff will fix you a double shot as you put your feet up on the cushions in the window and watch the freak-show on the street.
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Park Café
Tucked away in a surprisingly leafy pocket of Alexandria with the factory outlets only a block away, Park Café is a great spot to refuel during a shopping frenzy or to celebrate your bargains with a glass of wine on the sunny terrace. The food's fresh and fabulous with a distinctly Mediterranean feel and the coffee's excellent.
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Perry Lane Café
Follow the freeway-style signs down Perry La to this unexpected little café and escape the Oxford St hubbub for a while. There's great coffee, breakfast burritos, and it's very kid- and tea-drinker-friendly (each with dedicated menu pages). The lemon chicken Turkish sandwich with chilli mayonnaise is a doozey.
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Sappho Espresso Bar
Hidden away in the back of a sprawling bookshop, Sappho is a wonderfully bohemian garden café where the walls are scrawled with generations of graffiti. The coffee's excellent, the staff adorable and the food a healthy selection of salads, panini and light breakfast options.
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Single Origin Roasters
It's hard to imagine a more passionate bunch of caffeine junkies than this crew - they practically bounce off the walls in their enthusiasm, happy to chat about the fair trade or environmental credentials of their various beans. The food's simple but delicious, including a great bircher muesli.
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Sloanes
Don't be put off by the tiny interior, head down the back where there's a sweet courtyard surrounded by mature trees. The breakfast and coffee are great and the lunch blackboard is always crammed with fancy pies, salads, wraps and soups. This is the place where former jailbird Paris Hilton famously, like, totally wandered off without paying her bill. Like, shut up!
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Spring Espresso
It's hard to differentiate this place from La Buvette (around the corner at 35 Challis Ave; same size, clientele, standard - similar menu) and even more difficult before the first coffee of the day, so just grab whichever has the first table available. Spring's salmon breakfast hits the spot every time.
