coffee specialist

The Age Good Cafe Guide 2013

June 18, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

The 2013 edition of The Age Good Cafe Guide is in stores today – are your favourites listed? While I am not a coffee drinker I have reviewed several of the award-winning establishments. These cafes won top honours: Eftpos Best Cafe: Auction Rooms (North Melbourne) Best Coffee: Axil Coffee Roasters (Hawthorn) [...]

HOT: Industry Beans, Warehouse 3, Cnr Rose St & Fitzroy St (enter from Fitzroy St), Fitzroy

March 17, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

How do you convince a non-coffee drinker to drink coffee? Wrap it up in some fancy science and serve it with a smile. Regular readers of this blog will know that I don’t drink coffee. It’s one of my few weirdly inconsistent food habits – I will happily eat coffee cake and coffee ice cream, but [...]

HOT: St Ali North, 815 Nicholson St, Carlton North

March 15, 2013 ⋅ One comment

St Ali North is a cafe that ticks all the boxes for me. In fact, it’s almost as if they gathered a focus group of one (me) and asked what I wanted from a cafe. Let’s see now…an easy distance from my house via public transport or bike, an interesting menu using good quality produce, [...]

HOT: Monk Bodhi Dharma, Rear 202 Carlisle St, Balaclava

May 24, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

What do you expect to find in a supermarket carpark? Cars, trolleys, a rubbish skip and maybe some delinquent kids? Certainly not the coolest cafe-in-a-brick-shed in town. Monk Bodhi Dharma sounds like the temple for some Eastern cult, but in fact it’s a fabulous rustic cubbyhouse cafe nestled away from the bright flourescence of the [...]

HOT: The Maling Room, 206 Canterbury Rd, Canterbury

May 18, 2011 ⋅ 3 comments

At first glance, the sign for The Maling Room looks like The Mailing Room. Which is an apt name for the airy cafe housed in a Victorian era former post office, its faux majestic columns hailing the entrance to the little village street known as Maling Road. Maling Road is a favourite pram-pushing destination for [...]

HOT: St Ali, 18 Yarra Place, South Melbourne

May 9, 2011 ⋅ 3 comments

No doubt many of you have heard of St Ali, the cafe and specialty coffee purveyors who are one of a handful of places responsible for Melbourne’s love affair with ‘third wave’ coffee. Well, I don’t drink coffee, so this puts me at a disadvantage when a reviewing a place such as St Ali. However, [...]

HOT: Penny Farthing Espresso, 206 High St, Northcote

January 12, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Penny Farthing Espresso is a cute combination of the bygone era of top hats and handlebar moustaches with insouciant Northcote coolness. The cafe first caught my eye because of the fabulous steampunk bicycle in the window. Apparently it’s a working apparatus, although the penny farthing enthusiast who built it has only ridden it twice…and fallen off [...]

HOT: De Clieu, 187 Gertrude St, Fitzroy

January 10, 2011 ⋅ 8 comments

De Clieu is the hottest cafe on the Gertrude Street strip at the moment and it was one of the reasons I’d avoided it till now. The crowd overspilling into the footpath tables and lounging in the frame of the large street-facing windows seemed too cool for school (or at least too cool for me) [...]

HOT: Espresso 3121, 98 Balmain St, Richmond

October 28, 2010 ⋅ One comment

Espresso 3121 is a little tucked away cafe in the middle of warehouse-bounded Richmond. It’s not easy to find but it’s testament to its good quality food (and presumably excellent coffee, given its name) that it was a jumping little joint during the weekday lunch hour (note it’s closed weekends). The cafe is housed in [...]

HOT: Postal Hall, 116 Russell St, Melbourne

August 24, 2010 ⋅ 6 comments

When I first walked into Postal Hall, it reminded me a bit of an Eastern bloc railway station. The sound of hissing steam bouncing off concrete, glass and metal surfaces. A high ceiling with exposed beams hanging a large functional clock. A brushed metal bench supporting people in transit, as they climbed onto red padded [...]

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