Top Paddock
Congregating for coffee is integral to the Melbourne culture. We all have our favourite local and I know more than a few people who have a list of cafés they ‘must visit’. So…
Coin Laundry
With a queue of people waiting behind you at the door, grappling for a table, there’s no need to be friendly for goodness sake!! I was happy to discover this was not the case at Coin Laundry.
Ora
My home ground never used to be so cool. Its claim to fame was the most densely private-school-packed area in the Southern Hemisphere, where by 3pm, every main road corner was spewing over…
Pure Italian
The thing I love most about Pure Italian? That it’s jammed right up next to a Pizza Hut. Oh the irony.
Hobba
While Willim is small and sunny and slightly genteel in a Malvern sidestreet, Hobba’s more like its renegade cousin who’s just blown back into town after a sketchy, nefarious jaunt overseas.
Cafe Gaia
When we finally visited Café Gaia this weekend it lived up to our first impression. The wait staff are friendly and helpful without a hint of South Yarra snobbery. They seem to be on first name terms with a majority of their customers and the banter between them kept us entertained.
Collective Espresso
Despite the Orwellian aspects of the name, this is by no means a dark and smoky den frequented by bearded Marxists, their earnest partners, and the occasional lost hippy. Not even close.
Axil Coffee Roasters
Long before it opened there was Twitter chatter about a new cafe and roaster opening in Hawthorn. Then May finally brought Axil into the world and Hawthorn got a whole lot cooler. And smarter.
Outpost
Outpost: a station in a remote or sparsely populated location. Sorry Google definitions, I have to disagree. To me, Outpost means perfectly populated, quirky cafe keepin’ it real in a posh part of town.
The Millswyn
There’s nothing quite like being transported back to a happy place in your memory… sometimes it’s a song, a smell, a colour, a cafe…
Cattivo
‘Do you know a good café in Camber-’ ‘Cattivo’. Whenever people ask me for a coffee recommendation in Camberwell, I am always locked and loaded and ready to shoot ‘Cattivo!’ before they’ve got…
Yellow Bird
‘Don’t ask us to turn the music down – we like it this way.’ The hand-scrawled sign is long gone but the message still plays loud and clear at Yellow Bird, where it’s…
