Snapshot: Sydney Cafés V

Sydney is now home to a swathe of new cafés, quickly swelling to Melbornian proportions (well, almost). Quite frankly, the industry has become a rather perplexing beast swaying under the pressures of sky-high rent, keeping up appearances on social media and somehow having 'an edge' over everyone else. Because let's face it, the standards of coffee and café fare at the moment are nothing to be sniffed at (go us :D). Now the rest of us can go forth and reap the spoils! Sydney café society is very much alive and kicking, particularly in the Inner West. Suburbs like Chippendale, Enmore and Marrickville are running red hot at the moment. Here are a few that are leading the charge:

Brewtown Newtown

6-8 O'Connell St, Newtown

I may just have a thing for great typography and signage. Here are the 23 karat gold leaf efforts by Lynes & Co Source: Lynes & Co

Ever since my time as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergrad (back in the day) I've always had a soft spot for Newtown. Not only for its accessibility and character but also all the cafés, bookshops and quirky boutiques that line King Street in their dozens, not to mention $6.50 thai food. It's utterly irresistible. It's a little cultural hub and if I ever lived there...I might never well leave! Ever since opening last year, Brewtown Newtown has had a dream run. I'm thinking the alliteration might have a role there. Taking over the old Berkelouw bookshop site with an 'industrial' revamp, this airy space is now home to a café, micro-roastery and boutique of nice things in O'Connell Street Merchants upstairs.

And so, the battle of the coffee ferns ensues... After watching the Latte Art Smackdown at the Aroma Coffee Festival this year I have a new appreciation for the pouring of milk. Crazy. Person. I feel as though coffee in Sydney has reached a plateau, but in a good way. Not quite to the ridiculous standards of Melbourne (ruthless) but we try!

It's a familiar story, these lads (and ladettes) are serious about their coffee.  Sourcing green beans from a far off plantation in Panama, they are then roasted onsite where all the magic happens under the name of Gnome Coffee Merchants. Brewtown prides itself on showcasing seasonal blends as well as single origin brews. Take your pick from espresso, cold drip or filter; it's all there and if you don't know what I'm going on about, just order your go-to like I eventually did. A regular cap, s'il vous plaît! The menu is nice and concise with options appealing to all. I zoned in on the most unhealthy thing on the menu - there were cronuts involved. I have to say that Brewtown is hitting all the right notes with their set-up. Definitely worth a try if you can get a table! Good luck with that.

Baked polenta with mushrooms, grilled asparagus, poached egg & parmesan ($15). A super popular dish on the Brewtown menu, this is a lovely combination perfect for lunch or brekkie. The eggs were poached well, with the polenta to mop up all the yolk

Elvis burger: ground beef, savoury cronut, canadian bacon, gruyère and mayo with chips and relish ($16.50). It looks half eaten but actually this was the perfect serving size considering how calorie laden every mouthful was. Hidden under the innocuous disc of cronut was a proper hamburger, and very indulgent at that. The relish was a nice touch and potato wedges go with everything...

Bion Societé

Cnr Layton & Lambert Streets, Camperdown

A decent cappucino, or maybe I was just dying for caffeine at that point!

Not far from Sydney University or RPA, Bion Societé is tucked away from the chaos of Parramatta Road. Like a suburban oasis for locals, this is the perfect local coffee shop by all accounts. The interior is quite striking with floor to ceiling windows, larger communal tables and a green wall. With a very warm welcome we are ushered to our table, crowned with a huge pot plant which I discreetly pushed to one side. With coffee orders placed, I was already in my happy place.

Another rather swanky and super appealing café interior Source: Bion Societé

Chef Cherag Baria and the team have devised a very thoughtful café menu featuring plenty of crowd favourites from the all day breakfast  as well as a few dishes with a Bion twist. The crispy skin ocean trout dish with harissa looked delicious! As soon as the dishes hit the table we were pleasantly surprised by the care put into the plating. From the get-go I was pretty impressed by the whole package. The food was also a cut above (in the café food stakes) with a nice attention to detail. A big tick from me!

Persian breakfast: oven baked eggs and spiced lamb slowly cooked in tomato, capsicum, ricotta & coriander sauce with toasted sourdough ($21). The eggs were perfectly cooked, nice and runny to trawl through the dish. A good effort although I do look back fondly at Kepos Street Kitchen's version

Smoked salmon stack: sourdough toast, avocado puree, feta, smoked salmon, trout roe, fresh herbs, pesto olive oil & marinated black olives ($14.50). A thing of beauty, you wouldn't dream of doing this kind of fancy work at home. And the perfect serving size

BION Café breakfast: 2 eggs (cooked to your preference) with caramelised tomato, herb butter, mushrooms, chorizo, bacon, wilted spinach & toasted sourdough ($20). Old faithful = the perfect hangover cure (not that we were hungover :D)

Thanks for reading!
xGourmand

Snapshot: Sydney Cafés IV

Luxe Bakery Café

195 Missenden Road, Newtown

Credit: Sophie Roberts (Broadsheet Sydney)

As if Sydney didn't already have enough cafés but perhaps Luxe can claim to be one of the originals. With multiple branches around town, Luxe Newtown is also the site of their bakery, a converted 5-bedroom house on Missenden Road (alrighty then). If it weren't for the big love heart adorning it's side wall you might totally miss it. If there is no wiggle room in Campos (the coffee aromas coming from that place are off the charts...) then Luxe is surely your best bet. That or Black Star Pastry, Brewtown Newtown (with their  enticing pistachio affogatos at The Affogato Shack) or 212 Blu...Plenty of choices!

Tea smoked ocean trout omelette, creme fraîche and trout roe. A sure-fire winner in my book and very pleasing to the eye!

My only gripe with this café is that it becomes super heated in the summer heat. The ceiling fans do little but circulate that hot air around. Yes, I did resort to fanning myself like a lunatic. Maybe it's oven firing out the back, churning out great organic sourdough loaves to envy the baking big wigs. There's also a good variety of pastries for the sweet tooth. Scrawled on the blackboard menu is a standard selection of eggs, eggs with carbs, eggs with protein, carbs and more (you get the picture). The brekkie and brunch service easily rolls into lunch time and with coffee like that, you'll soon be grinning ear to ear.

The one stop shop for your daily bread Credit: Sophie Roberts (Broadsheet Sydney)

Twig Cafe

357 Cleveland St, Redfern

The perfect hangover cure: grilled sardines, baked egg, haloumi, avocado and whole grain bread. Plain awesome

Finding inspiration in London's Petersham Nurseries, Richard and Rainey Francis' Twig Cafe shares the green oasis of Garden Life. The result is a relaxed urban café surrounded by water features and greenery aplenty. You can tell by the crowds milling outside and number of dogs tied outside the popularity of this place amongst locals. The menu is 'classic' breakfast with a few Twig twists. They are well known for their Egg in the Basket and house made Toasted Date and Walnut Brioche (served with ricotta and wild honey). What's more the prices are quite acceptable for these parts. Make tracks...

A simple interior with a lovely outlook onto the garden Credit: George Popov (Broadsheet Sydney)

Thanks for reading!
xGourmand

Coming up with the Goods

Baked goods, that is.
There's not many places I feel entirely comfortable with declaring my allegiance (more like devotion, but anyway) to but Black Star Pastry in Newtown is one of those. BSB is one other (previous post here). The very definition of old trusty, BSP has hit the nail on the head several times over.

A wide angle lens could work wonders...standing room only: This is a regular occurrence at BSP seeing as there is a total of one table inside and then bums on stools outside. The rest can lump it, basically. A teeny tiny shop, sandwiched next to Oscillate Wildly, a degustation only diner, where molecular gastronomy is high on the cards P.S. such a good restaurant name). Photo: Concrete Playground

Opened in 2009 by pastry chef owner Chris Thé, it has become a Newtown stalwart. A suburb dominated by Thai restaurants (often in multiples of the same I, II etc), grungy food co-ops, cafes GA-LORE and more Thai restaurants...though I could never turn down a $6.50 Thai meal though - never! BSP has built a great reputation in just over 3 years, swiftly becoming a Newtown 
stalwart. The crowds (still) speak for themselves.

Chris to the rescue! All he needs is a fist in the air...Often seen helping in 'front of house' i.e. pavement, Chris has given up his hatted kitchen roots (little place called Claude's, in other words a hatted kitchen in Sydney for the non-initiated) to set up his own joint. Photo Adrian Wiggins

I first discovered these pastry digs several years ago when a friend of mine had my soon-to-be favourite cake. It was a real beauty: their uber famous Strawberry and Watermelon cake with Rose-scented cream. Ah! I died! It is so amazingly light, you could easily down a piece in a heartbeat. Here is a more recent piccie:

If you haven't yet tried this chunk (or is it 'slice'?) of heaven, hop to it - quick smart! True it looks like a heart attack on a plate but you will not believe how incredibly light it is, especially with that rose cream. The layers form a perfect union (how poetic of me). Iphone photo: VD

If you're feeling game, I've posted the recipe for this cake at the tail end of the post (featured in a back issue of Australian GT magazine. Props to those who give it a go! It looks pretty okay but I'm sure the assembly part is a b****. I'm quite content savouring it in-store at the moment, thanks very much!

Since that occasion, I have found myself going back there time and time again. It's a one stop shop for all of your baking needs and cravings. I'm one to grab a coffee, a loaf of sourdough, a sausage roll, a cake for dessert, all of the above...it's like a bloody gold mine. Like Ikea, you never leave empty handed! If I've got a spare moment, I'll happily mooch there with company for hours, systematically picking our way through the pastry cabinet. It really is a bit like that. 

A feast for the eyes! And taste buds hopefully i.e. GO THERE. A wee selection of sweet treats featuring old mate (strawbs and watermelon), orange cake with persian fig and quince (LOVE quince), apple and blueberry tart (not a huge fan of the sugar dusting but i'll deal) and panna cotta. I think the ginger ninja may have looked a bit out of place here, but they're mighty good too ;) Iphone photo: SLY (actual initials!)

In more recent news, I was struck by a new cake that I hadn't seen before. It was a sponge that had some serious height going, perched in a glass dome all on its lonesome. It was their Lemon Myrtle Chiffon Cake (just to change things up a bit: WHAT will she do next?!). It had a bit of a retro feel to it which was cute. Beautifully fluffy, just as a sponge should be (I know you're essentially paying for air here, or maybe a good whisk attachment on a mixmaster?) and with a hint of herbiness slash fragrance from the lemon myrtle powder + toasted coconut dusting. Ignoring the layer of buttercream (though very thin) you could almost pass it off as the 'fat camp' of cake! Like a lemon (myrtle) detox in a way. Yes, I go to great lengths to justify... *smiley face*

At risk of being blinded by pixelation, I have had to keep this picture on the small side. But I mean you get the idea right? Each slice is probably close to 15cm tall - now that is some serious elevation. Photo credit: Black Star Pastry

Drum roll cake fans!

Strawberry and Watermelon Cake
Serves 8

Ingredientsss
250g seedless watermelon, thinly sliced
60ml (1/4 cup) rosewater
4 tbspn caster sugar
40g almond meal
500g strawberries, halved
10 seedless red grapes
1 tbspn slivered pistachios
1 tbspn dired rose petals

Almond dacquoise (fancy french for cake layer of nut meringue and buttercream)
150g almonds, coarsely chopped
150g icing sugar, sieved
5 egg whites
135g caster sugar

Rose-scented cream
300ml thickened cream
30g caster sugar
2 tbspn rosewater

Method
1. For dacquoise, preheat oven to 200 degrees. Process almonds in a food processor till finely ground. Combine with icing sugar in bowl. Whisk egg whites in electric mixer to form soft peaks (3-4 minutes), the gradually add caster sugar until stiff peaks form (1-2 minutes). Gently fold through almond mixture, spread evenly on tray (~30x40cm)lined with baking paper and bake until golden (10-15 mins). Set aside to cool on tray, then cut in half lengthways
2. Arrange watermelon slices in a single layer on a wire rack. Sprinkle with 20ml rosewater, then scatter with 2 tbspn sugar. Stand to macerate (break up/soften)for 30 mins then pat try with absorbent paper
3. For rose cream, whisk cream and sugar in electric mixer to soft peaks, gradually adding rosewater and whisk until stiff peaks form
4. Spread 1/3 of rose cream evenly over one half of dacquoise, scatter with half of the almond meal, then top with watermelon, trimming to fill any gaps. Scatter over remaining almond meal, spread over half remaining cream. Top with remaining dacquoise, spread over remaining cream and refrigerate until firm (1-2 hrs)
5. Combine strawberries, remaining rosewater and remaining sugar in a bowl, toss to combine and set aside to macerate (15 mins). Carefully arrange on top of cake, gently pushing into cream. Trim edges of cake, scatter over grapes, pistachios and petals. Voila!

I feel quite posh after typing dacquoise all those times haha. And there we are! Do your worst.

Thanks for reading! x