I do like these new cafes that are sprouting up in the middle of residential streets, where the milk bars used to be. There’s Mitte in North Fitzroy, Red Door Corner Store in Northcote, and my latest outing was to Squirrel Cafe in Clifton Hill.
It’s on the corner of Groom and Noone Streets, and proudly displays its milk-bar origins:
Inside, it lacks the slick design of Mitte or Red Door, but is very homely (in a good way) – and best of all, we got a seat immediately, at 10.30am on a Saturday! (On the way home we drove past Mixed Business, which was so beyond full there were at least ten punters milling about outside waiting for a table.)
We ordered coffees straight away, which came within about 5 minutes. They serve Jasper coffee. It was reasonably good.
We perused the menu, which makes a note of the fact that they use as many local suppliers as possible, and also try and use organic, free range and fair trade. So they get some good enviropoints.
I ordered the “Acorn Porridge”, which came with plain yoghurt, granola, fruit compote and Mallee honey. I don’t usually order porridge – I do like it, but it’s always pretty boring – but I saw another customer with it and it looked tasty, so I thought I’d give it a go.
Pretty good! Certainly the most interesting porridge I’ve had. The only annoying thing was that there were chunks of cinnamon and lots of cloves in the compote that I had to keep picking out.
J. had the eggs on Turkish bread with tomato, avocado and lemon, plus a side of hash browns:
The hash browns were the frozen kind you get in the supermarket, bit disappointing. The avocado was all mashed up and runny, so the whole thing was sort of like breakfast guacamole. I think it would have been a lot better with slices of avocado; and maybe sourdough toast instead of the Turkish might have given it a bit more texture too.
They had some cute retro sweets there, including chocolate crackles, honey joys and rocky road. Very primary-school-fete! We didn’t try any but they did look nice.
Staff were friendly and efficient. Overall I would say Squirrel Cafe is pleasant in a rustic sort of way, but it’s a little rough around the edges to be a strong weekend-brunch contender.
KATE
Hey Kate, thanks for that – always looking for new breakfast places. Can you recommend somewhere for really awesome scrambled eggs? Linked you on my blog by the way! =o)
Perhaps those rough edges are the reason you were seated so quickly! Those serves look huge, no leaving hungry.
Can you shed any light on the acorn part of your breakfast? Can't see any of them or squirrels for that matter…thank goodness.
Vee – I don't eat scrambled eggs very often so I'm not much of an expert in that department, sorry!
Neil – didn't spot any acorns in my porridge so I'm guessing it's just a cute name
Cheers! Must check it out, I love red door corner store and mitte
the coffee has really gone down hill lately though, and I have never felt that its a particularly decent place. but its close for the locals. But with mixed business and apte and schotchmere cafes only a 5 min drive away, I'd choose them…
got truely terrible service here the other day, will not be back
coffee is still great and they are such friendly staff-I just love this place
cameron
yes i do love the food and the staff are delightful, but i thought the barista was the problem, very arrogant, he made a big fuss that my family all stand up and swap seats with other seats saying they were the wrong ones??