CAFE COOL
Melbourne has become the epicentre of world coffee culture, almost in spite of itself; a happy combination of factors that came together in a perfect brew.
“The Melbourne cafe is now a genre around the world in the same vein as an Irish pub or a French bistro.”
IT MIGHT BE MUSHROOMS on toast but there’s nothing ordinary about these sautéed local pine mushrooms tossed with cress and served with poached eggs and a soft Parmesan pudding on wholegrain Zeally Bay Sourdough. On the side is not just any fruit salad, but baked lemon ricotta parfait with blood plums (wow, what a flavour), passionfruit dressing, Brazil nuts and toasted seeds. A selection of Ethiopian ‘naturals’ is on the coffee blackboard menu. As a splurge, I order a $12 ‘Zorro’ Geisha V60 (‘tastes like strawberry jam and creamy as f@#k’) as a pour over. Sunshine streams in through the large windows of this red-brick former textile mill on a quiet side street of Collingwood. Reggae plays on
