Zondar! Nerds in Food Land

I’ve been mining the Cafe Run twitter coffee list and taking some tips from my old friend Grant at Sydney Coffee Tours who has his ear to the grounds (ahem) and tends to always get there first and I’ve come up with some must-visit Sydney cafes - for me! - this time with a slight north-side bias (about time!)

These links take you to Beanhunter which is by far the best location-based service for finding top notch coffee. iPhone users can even say “iPhone! Where’s the good coffee around here?”. But make up your own mind, put your own reviews in and help those who come after.

Bean Drinking impressive stats and some big statements in the reviews. Crows Nest is where my band used to reherse. In the same street as Bean Drinking. Takes me back. Crows Nest is pretty accessible from most locations, it’s not too far from the city and I think I may get over the bridge some time after Tuesday when I get my three broken spokes replaced and have my wheel trued. Once I’m back on my monster mountain bike I shall have Bean Drinking. Oh ho ho. I crack me up.

Pablo & Rusty’s Gordon it looks like there is also one in Epping and these two suburbs are old stomping grounds of mine. I can attest to, at least back in the dark ages when I lived there, the absolute dire need for proper coffee. Properly roasted beans, properly designed blends (or interesting single o’s) and properly made espresso! Do I ask too much? Not any more apparently. I’ll want to check out the Epping Pablo & Rusty’s also, but Grant knows his mud so I’ll hit Gordon first. Now if only it wasn’t such a hike.

Coffee Alchemy this one I’m embarrassed to say I STILL have yet to get to. Not too far from my Inner West nest, famously, according to my Barista Sista, does not sell anything but coffee. Not a crumb nor a cup of tea can you buy. And when they fire up the roaster both hearing and breathing are significantly impaired. Hard core. I used to live in Marrickville too so, yet another old stomping ground with kick arse coffee. Maybe it’s my influence with a delayed impact?

OK What’s next? Let me know. I have put my cafe reviews into Beanhunter, now you do the same, and drop me a line to tell me where to go! You can get me at chris@think.net.au

Stand by for a future post on my recent trip to San Francisco and the bean scene there. I was stunned. In both a good and a bad way!

It’s been a while and I thought I’d post an update on the burgeoning Sydney cafe scene from my point of view. That is, as a fussy coffee drinker.

Firstly, I am not providing an exhaustive list of what’s hot and what’s not. If you want that and a broad range of opinions, then check out BeanHunter an awesome international coffee oriented cafe rating system put out by a couple of Australian guys.

Next, the dead pool. Cafes can become great and some can stay great, but when the management changes on an excellent cafe the result is not usually good. In my opinion one example of new management wrecking a perfectly good source of excellent coffee (and organic food) is Pulse on Kent St (you’d be excused for thinking it’s called Sacred Ground as I did originally since it’s branded heavily by them). The management and staff changed completely about 6 months ago and that’s precisely when it jumped the shark.

My impression is that some cafe owners think that running a successful cafe is like running a successful convenience store. Be attentive, take the money, run the business. Well that may be the case with some cafes but not when you’re trying to attract a coffee hunting crowd. Funnily enough they really care about the coffee. These days the Pulse coffee just tastes dead.

Mecca on the corner of King and York is still awesome. Not really much surprise as these guys are hardcore coffee nerds whose passion for coffee flies them to Africa and is quite literally tattooed into their skin. Not surprising but but reassuring they are leading the way. The boys have opened a store in Circular Quay since I wrote about them and that makes three locations.

Also still sublime is Single Origin which is a phenomenon unto itself. If you think their website is good that’s nothing compared to their double ristrettos. I can’t stop thinking about the toasted sourdough with nutella, sliced banana and roasted almonds, I’ve had it for breakfast there twice! I’ll blog more about the single origin coffee movement next time.

New on the scene and lean and mean is Klink, down behind the Queen Victoria Building on Clarence St across the road from world superhero chef Justin North’s Becasse restaurant and its very good Plan B cafe. Klink is almost invisible, having no signage, making it impossible to spot from the footpath and often obscured from across the street by busses. The weird Japanese $2 shop and the more conspicuous Vela Nero (not a bad cafe) are either side of Klink so if you see them you’re warm. The coffee is worth the expense of needing a GPS to find it.

Klink’s bossman barista, James, is clearly anal retentive about every cup of coffee being hand crafted to perfection - even at the increasingly savage rush times. With that approach and beans roasted by top notch purist Golden Cobra you can forgive the minimal menu. It’s a wonder they can even make toast in such a small footprint.

Workshop Espresso is another newish cafe in the CBD that demonstrates great taste and skill. The tiny yet polished shop is virtually at the intersection of George and Druitt streets on George across the road from the Queen Victoria Building. To be honest I have been disappointed more than once here and often prefer Klink. Especially considering how big the queues can get. Nevertheless I have to give them their props. They know coffee and how to make it and their huge crowd of customers are well deserved.

The Met cafe, one of my old haunts at Wynyard park on Margaret St I have to admit I haven’t been to in a long while but writing this roundup reminds me I must go check in with Brendan and see if he still knows how to do it

Outside the CBD there are too many to cover and I don’t know them as well with a couple of exceptions. I know Annandale cafes well and can heartily recommend Clover across the road from the Post Office on Booth St or Gallery Cafe if you don’t mind paying and waiting more than anywhere else in Christendom.

My to-do list includes roastery Coffee Alchemy in Marrickville who are so hard core they don’t even serve tea and I want to revisit the Allpress cafe in Rosebery/Alexandria for a double rizz and a bap. After that I’ll probably take some hints from Grant Lyndon of Sydney Coffee Tours fame.

Any suggestions?

I can hardly contain myself.

When you order a long black, there is a reason for the first word. It identifies the size of the coffee. A short black is small and a long black is large. Those are the two sizes, long and short. Well that’s how it was supposed to be.

These days in Australia we are following the American sizing model. This model contains no diminuative words like “small” or “short”. Nope. Too negative. Bigger is always better, so the least big can be called “regular”. Of course regular is not a size at all, it’s an interval but let’s leave that one for now.

All over the press, Single Origin took number one in a Time Out Sydney top 10 cafes and have just snared the SMH Good Food Guide Favorite Cafe.

Kind of weird Single Origin didn’t get a mention in local industry awards… Did they ignore it? How was this decided, industry people patting themselves on the back..?

The NSW Catering and Restaurant Assc gave All Press Best Coffee House.

Under catering they gave the Australian Jockey Club Caterer of the Year.

Other happy winners:

COFFEE SHOP / TEA HOUSE
Winner: Allpress Espresso, Zetland
Electric Bean, North Sydney
Speedo’s Café, North Bondi
The Chelsea Tea House, Avalon
The Tearoom Gunners Barracks, Mosman
The Tearoom QVB, Sydney

BOARDROOM CATERER
Sponsored by Dairy Farmers
Winner: JP Morgan Administrative Services, Sydney
Gastronomy, the Art & Science of Food, Kensington

CORPORATE CATERER
Sponsored by Dairy Farmers
Winner: Avocado Group, Chatswood
As You Like It Catering, North Narrabeen
Flavours Catering & Events, Eastwood
Fresh Catering, St Peters
Stix Catering, Marrickville

Zondar Award for Best Cafe website goes to Single Origin.

Where to for birthday breakfast in Sydney? A good thing about Single Origin is the rich smell, great is the menu, awesome the gluwein, beyond that the coffee.

At 07:20, steaming gluwein landed on the table. Easily sipping myself into a morning euphoria and my big American friend pulled up bellowing “Happy Birthday man!” The staff now knew it was my birthday which secured a second gluwein and a complimentary ristretto. After that poached eggs, mushrooms, homemade beans and spinach…

The ristretto made the aroma festival feel like a waste of time, the gluwein transported me effortlessly into the first meeting of the day.

Toby’s Estate was 2007s winner of the ‘how long is my $1 coffee queue competition’ but they had their ass kicked this year by Cafe Hernandez, enhorabuena! Why do people wait 20 mins for a coffee? Addiction? Not really it was everywhere… Good coffee? Yeah and coolness.

Not big brand hype. Word of mouth & coolness have worked for the Hernandez family and their 24 hour coffee shop… Gentrification of the Potts Point location has helped.

Build a brand in the cafe industry, on cool, quality & word of mouth. Certainly not on glamorous logos, I struggled to find an example at the stall to take a photo & snapped this from the top of a menu card.

The coffee scene is like clubbing. Make yourself cool by having a long queue of agitated customers full of buzz, someone out of the scene won’t know what it’s about and is likely to queue up. And like the Hernandez queue, when you get to the front you must be rewarded.

The buzz you’d expect at a caffine party, big buzz, not so much hype though… Why would people get out there & spread their gear without giving their brand any… ‘jujjjjj’?

The Rocks was decked out with stalls all shaded with the same tacky plastic non-descript white blankness. From a distance they looked the same. Punters have to walk right up to a tent to work out what it was for. Isn’t this the big event for the year, the big chance to big-up your crew’s brew?

Is it an all pull marketing industry? Craft a delicious product then hang out and wait til its demanded? We know that’s not true although brands that play like that were noticeably absent (Starbucks and McCafe come to mind) .

Mission: dig up some kind of visual representation of the brands hidden under those white plastic generic display tents, take a snap and stick on flickr.

So a couple of people commented that $3.00 is a bit much for a coffee in the city although i’m sticking by that call for Annandale. Quick scout around cafe’s at Ultimo and agree that $2.50 is closer to the mark.

Cafe Columbia: $2.20
Corner Cafe: $2.50
Cafe Fusion: $2.20
Cafe Q: $2.80
Bourke St Bakery: $3.00

Cafe Fusion do four different sizes of coffee add an extra shot as you go up - all the way to a ‘Quad’, four shots in an extra large.

Three bucks seems to be the norm for most reputable places, although break the $3.00 mark we’ll start asking questions. Gallery Cafe in Annandale have just put the price up to $3.20. Just down the road, Hopscotch cafe tried raising their price to to $3.20 only to find it killed their business, it’s back down to $3.00 now. Not to far away at Bar Sirocco you pay $2.50 for an average coffee. Round the corner Vicini do a bonza coffee for the right price - $3.oo.

The best value (price & quality) cup of coffee is served up by a Bulgarian, Australian operator at the Cockle Bay Kiosk on the City side of the Pyrmont Bridge walkway. He’ll do you up a hit for $2.20 (takeaway only). Some of his more close-fisted clients will still share a long black.

The best value (price & quality) cup of coffee is served up by a Bulgarian, Australian operator at the Cockle Bay Kiosk on the City side of the Pyrmont Bridge walkway. He’ll do you up a hit for $2.20 (takeaway only). Some of his more close-fisted clients will still share a long black.

I used to work uptown, now I’m downtown. On the way out of a meeting my colleagues suggested we detour for Single Origin. Glorious words. People tuned in to coffee frequency in Sydney often mention this place oh and they’ve got a sweet website.

The best uptown coffee is at Mecca. The best downtown coffee is at Single Origin.

Mecca’s food is not remarkable, their coffee is kick arse.

Single Origin’s coffee is a deliciously dark & earthy bubbling crema mud pit. Their food is amazing.

A snapshot of their menu please:

Yes that does say “four cheese toasty”. Is that original?? It’s bloody awesome. Oh, what up with the toasted nutella, roast almonds & banana sandwich? Not something I’d normally sort myself out with but they haven’t put a foot wrong yet so…