Snapshot: Sydney Cafés III

Devon café has its head tightly screwed on. When it comes to coffee and café dining, it means business. Surrounding themselves with some proper talent (alumni from Guillaume and Toby's Estate), husband & wife team Derek Puah & Noni Widjaja have filled an apparent hole in Sydney's café market with Devon. A 2 minute walk from central station, this nook of Surry Hills is being revived of sorts. When we sauntered up to the shop front, both breakfast specials had been emphatically crossed off the specials blackboard. Dang it (great for them, bad for us). As is often the case in Sydney; you snooze, you lose.

The new golden arches? Uh, yes please Photo credit: The AU Review

Devon isn't just a bunch of hipster friends tinkering in the kitchen or with an espresso machine. The team is all about offering restaurant quality food with a decidedly casual mode of delivery. Devon's staff are proud that much of their pickles, preserves and cures are made in-house. The lengthy coffee menu goes into great detail about where beans are sourced and then you have the choice of espresso, cold-drip (already sold out on the day for us) or chemex. My head might explode with the choices. Amongst the camouflage netting the vertical herb garden in the courtyard is a nice touch.

The sunny plyboard interior with baby blue racing stripes Photo: The Urban List

The menu reads as a veritable feast. Most dishes I would regard as quite hearty with only a smattering of lighter/veg options. There's a bit of a fusion going on with some Indonesian/Japanese influences (all welcome). As you'll see, the portion sizes are very generous but so delicious you feel compelled to finish. 

Citrus cured salmon with split dill cream, apple, celery, cucumber, fennel, soft boiled egg and brioche. This dish is amazing, not to be missed. Everything gels together so well, or maybe I just love salmon so much. It could be the latter

Breakfast with the Sakuma's (L) and the Flying Chook (R). Miso grilled king salmon, smoked eel croquette, 63' egg, radish petit salad and kewpi mayo - a great combination, would have like the croquette to have had a tad more eel. The miso was cooked perfectly though! Our sanga: Portugese chicken, grilled zucchini, baby spinach, cheese, chilli mayo & side of fries - umm, delicious! Those fries had a great dipping sauce too

Ogre 'Happy Meal': ox-tongue, hash potatoes, cauliflower puree, pickled onion & fried egg. Hiding under the egg were slices of ox tongue, so completely tender and tasty. Another great dish, and filling

Gone Bananas: banana pancakes, palm sugar caramel, banana fritters, pandan ice cream. Okay, this is not for the faint hearted and no I did not eat this alone. The pancakes were slightly heavier than I expected. Like 'sweet' is going out of fashion, this dessert is on 'roids - hitting that sweet button with a 1-2. I. need. water.

My second Asian cousin: tapioca & coconut, burnt citrus, almonds, chia and poppy seeds. This was my favourite dessert, for sure. Light, refreshing and sort of healthy. It was gone in the blink of an eye i.e. much preferred ;)

I had heard great things from friends about Devon Café and I'm happy to say that it is different, but in a good way. My one gripe with Devon would be its soundtrack, it was quite disorientating. At times I felt like I was at a rave (at 2pm?) or in the middle of a video game. It was a very strange feeling, sipping a coffee and trying to enjoy the ox-tongue! Like the quirky kid at school, Devon excels where it counts most - food + coffee. And that's all a girl can ask for.

Caffeine, a serious business. Chemex coffee @ Devon Credit: Daily Addict

There's plenty more where that came from, including write ups from my most recent overseas trip :D

Thanks for reading!

xGourmand