I kept thinking Cornersmith was called Cornerstone. I kept meaning to go there and never making it. But I finally made it the morning of the Sydney Food Bloggers Picnic last month, and I wasn’t dissappointed.

Cornersmith is the kind of joint that’s closed for pickling on Mondays. Yes, really, I didn’t get that from some kind of Hipster’s Encyclopaedia of cafe descriptors (remind me to write that, if I ever get a chance). They do all kinds of locavore/DIY things like buying backyard produce and making their own jam. They have a beehive on their roof! Basically, they’re the cafe equivalent of a Portlandia sketch.

All this and more means that I was there with bells on at whatever time it was that Saturday. Cornersmith is right by Marrickville station, which is super convenient for someone like me who hates buses. It’s got great decor, clean white walls, jars of pickles adorning the counter and a good mix of natural timber and understated vintage furniture.

Me and my mate order and pay at the counter and nab the only free table. Our toast/coffee/toast/macch order comes out at $32, and I realise there must be a mistake. That’s the problem with order-and-pay-at-the-counter with somewhere as busy as Cornersmith – mistakes are bound to be made. Our bill gets downgraded to a much more reasonable $19, phew!

I’m a fan of the coffee and I’m a fan of the vibe, although Saturday morning is pretty hectic. I’m enjoying my Mecca macchiatto, apparently my friend’s mocha is no slouch either. The menu is simple, a lot of toast-and-toppings on offer, with many tthings made on site – from honey, to pickles, chutneys and jams. Cornersmith strives to be self-sufficient. They also sell their products, and other peoples’, instore.

The reviews have generally been positive and I can see why, although they’ve also been victim of some pretty harsh graffitti, with ‘yuppy scum’ painted across the storefront and the windows bashed in. All in all I will definitely return if I’m ever in the hood.

Cornersmith
314 Illawarra Road
Marrickville NSW 2204
(02) 8065 0844
Tuesday to Friday 6.30am – 3.30pm
Saturday and Sunday 8:00am – 3:00pm
Monday – closed for pickling

Cornersmith on Urbanspoon

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Sydney

For your caffeine hit
Cafe Dov, Potts Point
Bang Bang Espresso, Surry Hills
Becasse Bakery, CBD
Bourke Street Bakery – All stores
Clipper Cafe, Glebe
Coffee Trails, Haymarket
Double Roasters, Marrickville
Gnome Espresso, Surry Hills
Petty Cash Cafe, Marrickville
Raw 101, Castle Hill
Reuben Hills, Surry Hills
Room 10, Potts Point
The Little Marrionette, Annandale

For a bite
Becasse, CBD
Charlie and Co, CBD
El Loco, Surry Hills
Gelato Messina, Darlinghurst
Jackie M, Concord (bookings required, txt 0424 260 494)
Ms G’s, Pott’s Point
Quarter 21, CBD
The Dip, CBD
Toko, Surry Hills
Rockpool Group Restaurants

For a drink
Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee
Fredas, Chippendale
Wine Library, Woollahra
The Carrington Hotel, Surry Hills

Melbourne

For your caffeine hit
3 Bags Full Cafe, Abbotsford
Coin Laundry, Aramadale
Market Lane, Prahran Market
Monk Bohdi Dharma, Balaclava
Ora Cafe, Kew
Red Door Corner Store, Northcote
Yellow Bird Cafe, Prahran

For a bite
Ladro, Prahran
Rockpool Group Restaurants

Brisbane
Boardwalk Bar and Bistro, CBD
Grub Street Cafe, Gaythorne
The Fishery, Milton

Know somewhere else to eat/drink that’s open today? Comment below and I will add it to the list. Happy Australia Day, chums!

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Coffee kindred spirit John over at he needs food sent me this recommendation a while back and it’s taken me this long to get to it, but this week I finally made it to York Lane, a new-ish laneway café/bar located, funnily enough, on York Lane. It’s right by Wynyard station (convenient) and was one of the recipients of the City of Sydney grants to spruce up our dingy laneways. It’s definitely done that.

Senhor R and I arrived to find York Lane littered with just the right amount of milk crates. It’s a cosy place with recycled floorboards, pops of colour in the form of red stools and milk crate shelving, menus scrawled on walls and windows with whiteboard pen and upcycled everything else. It definitely had the look, but there’s more to a good café than thoughtful, trendy aesthetics. And I don’t just mean great food or coffee.

Let me digress. Lately I’ve been thinking about what we mean by hospitality and, more to the point, what we mean by good hospitality. The hospitality industry is a strange space where you sell goods like food and drinks, but also more intangible things like experiences, ambiance and making people feel welcome. This is tricky territory to navigate; you’re selling something that’s difficult to quantify and usually comes for free, thus making transactions highly emotionally charged. I think this is why when we have negative experiences in bars or cafés, we take it so personally. On the other hand, getting it right can win you glowing praise and loyal customers for years to come.

It seems like York Lane gets it right, being on trend, yet friendly. The two guys running the place were chatty but genuine. They got a fair bit of custom, mostly takeaways, and most of them seemed to be regular customers, which is a good sign. We felt comfortable and welcome, not distracted or intimidated by the decor, music or excessive sprinkling of micro herbs. No one used the phrase ‘it’s a Melbourne thing’. Not once did someone sneer at me or feel the need to wax their moustache. The guys behind the counter even exchanged a bit of banter with us, and I for one am not much for banter with strangers.

$3.50 for a teensy coffee is a tad steep in my books, but I’m a cheapskate through and through. The coffee was good- mild, dark and fullbodied without a lingering aftertaste…a one dimensional but rich flavour. I would’ve like a tad less milk in my macch. Is this a trend now? picchiatos? Then again I didn’t say so and we ordered a second round. I will be back for sure to try their ‘tapas style’ offerings and have a few drinks.

York Lane
Sydney, NSW 2000
02 9299 1676
http://www.yorklane.com/
Monday to Wednesday 6:00am – 10:00pm
Thursday to Friday 6:00am – midnight
Saturday 6:00pm – midnight
Closed Sundays

York Lane on Urbanspoon

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Lately I feel like the CBD cafe scene is really opening up, at least in terms of coffee. The little cluster of espresso bars in the CBD has been drawing me in of late, they’re the perfect pitstop on my way to work.

Yet another stop on the Clarence/Kent Street trail is Vella Nero, originally Velluto Nero. It may be the branding that put me off (I don’t generally associate a black/aqua colour combo with coffee) or maybe it’s the fact that they’re always packed with business people, but I never got around to checking this place out. But now I have an office job, I figure its ok for me to hang out in a business-person café.

The decor here is nothing to write home about but on the flipside, the place is packed with enough coffee gadgetry to fill my Christmas stocking for at least the next 5 years. When I get to the counter (it’s an order-and-pay-at-the-counter deal) the girl who serves me is incredibly friendly. When I pay, she stamps a card for me, asks me my name and writes it on my card, along with my coffee order.

Don’t be fooled by a quick glance inside – there’s plenty of seating upstairs and that’s where I decide to sit. I don’t have to wait long for my macch and they even bring a little glass of water which is always dandy. The coffee is good, nice and short and visually appealing – I’m very easily impressed by a coffee with striations.

Overall, in spite of how busy the place is the service and coffee are top notch. I would definitely visit again. Pity they’re not open on weekends.


Vella Nero Coffee Couture
259 Clarence Street,
Sydney NSW 2000
http://www.vellanero.com.au/

Vella Nero Coffee Couture on Urbanspoon

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It seems a little hub of coffee goodness is developing around the Clarence/Kent Street area. Maybe it’s Clover Moore’s laneway project, maybe it’s the hipster vibe radiating from the likes of Grandma’s Bar and Stitch, maybe it’s the I- don’t-have-time-for-crap-coffee-can’t-you-see-I’m-a-businessman ambiance of the CBD. I suspect it’s some combination of all three. Either way, it can only be a good thing for someone like me. That is, as long as it’s not a weekend.

Kent Street Specialty Coffee is obviously on Kent Street, between Druitt and Market Streets in what has traditionally been a bit of a coffee desert. Recently though solid coffee options like Klink and Le Grand Cafe have changed all that, although the area unfortunately still shuts down on the weekends.

I arrive early one morning and it’s freezing cold. Just for something different, I order a macchiatto. It takes a little while considering I’m one of three customers, but they bring me a glass of water which I appreciate. The macch has a good crema and is a tad longer than I like, but this is more of a personal preference than a criticism. Maybe I’ve gotten too used to the short shots that are all the rage these days.

The place is cavernous, all exposed brick, pillars and wooden floorboards. I’m a fan of the aesthetic but it’s a bit cold in winter. All in all I’d say it’s a good place to throw back a coffee and dash off to get on with your day, so it fits right in to the area.


Kent Street Specialty Coffee
414 Kent Street
Sydney, NSW 2000

Kent Street Specialty Coffee on Urbanspoon

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If there were ever a reason to block off a main road, it’s food. Every year, the City of Campsie and various sponsors close down Beamish Street and Anzac mall, turning it into a bustling marketplace. Local businesses whack tables out the front of their stores to sell their wares and food stalls line the streets.

Of course there are your usual suspects – your gozlëme, your profitjes, your primary school sausage sizzle. But there are also Colombian, Korean, Malaysian and Sanegalese stalls. The variety was fantastic and the streets were packed.

We were starving when we arrived and couldn’t get past s bit of deep-fried starchy goodness. We grabbed a couple of glutinous fried balls filled with chicken from Prospect Dim Sim and Bakery. Yum! Cold, but delicious. So much so that we grabbed a couple more for the ride home…

I just couldn’t go past the Colombian stall selling arepas with delicious slow-cooked beef and a spicy salsa not dissimilar to Chilean pebre. I’d only ever had arepas made of white corn meal and filled with cheese, but this larger yellow corn arepa topped with tender meat was so juicy it was difficult to eat without getting it everywhere! So worth it though.

Next stop for Senhor R was a Korean pancake. It was tasty but quite greasy, I think they were cooked in too much oil. Then (after about 15 minutes of waiting to be served), we grabbed a Senegalese peanut-based curry with broken rice. Yummy!

For those of you who like to do more than just stuff your faces, there were also rides, workshops, cooking demonstrations (the hand-made noodle demonstration was cool), special guests, music and a fruit and vegetable carving stall, along with locals trying in vain to do their weekly grocery shop. All in all it was a fun (but very crowded) morning and I would definitely recommend checking it out.


When I moved into my first sharehouse, it was advertised in the paper as ‘Surry Hills’. I knew this wasn’t true, because when I looked at a map, it was right by Redfern Station. However Redfern had a bad rep and Surry Hills was highly coveted, so over the years Surry Hills has been spreading like mould, at least in the real estate pages.

Then there are the suburbs that are completely made up – I’m looking at you, ‘Redfern East’. No, I’m sorry, you just plain don’t exist. And then there’s Darlington, its 2008 postcode made up almost entirely of Sydney Uni (and invented specifically so Sydney Uni would enjoy, shall we say, less rigid planning laws than the surrounding suburbs). To me this is kind of a suburb. It’s the one you say you live in when you’re trying to sell your house but you really live in Chippendale.

‘The Shortlist’ is in the semi-made-up suburb of Darlington on the lemming-walk to Sydney Uni stretch of Abercrombie St. There have been two pretty respectable café options on this drag for ages – the laid back Tripod, serving coffee roaster coffee and the incredibly popular but slightly grumpily staffed Café Ella which is never open Sundays.

But for some reason, no one had a thing to say about this stretch of road until The Shortlist came to town. It’s true that it’s a lot busier on weekends now and the breakfast crowd seem to be getting younger. Many new businesses have opened up and, like all of Redfern, gentrification is full steam ahead.

So while I would love to make a pun about The Shortlist having been on my shortlist for a while now, it sort of hasn’t. True, it’s always crowded and it serves Little Marrionette coffee, something that coffee guides seem to universally agree can only be a good thing. But I’ve always gone by and it’s been packed out the front by people crouching uncomfortably on tiny stools, trying to be seen. It’s a tad too Redfern East for Darlington, if you get my drift.

One thing I didn’t know until I had a look at a place a day is that they have a courtyard out the back. Yes, I’m a dunderheaded fool, I thought that doorway was a mirror. That and its proximity to my house clinched it for me so one weekend we trecked on over. We ordered some coffees and an Earl Grey Tea muffin, which sounds like a load of wank but was absolutely scrummy. The coffee was rich and syrupy, short the way I like it. They serve standard cafe fare and the prices seem reasonable. I can’t say for sure if I’ll be back, but that’s only because I’m so spoiled for choice. Overall I’d say give it a go, especially if you can grab a seat out the back, which is pretty easy to do as the seat out the front seem to be the favoured ones.

The Shortlist
258 Abercrombie Street
Darlington NSW 2008
www.theshortlistespresso.com
7:00am-4:00pm Monday-Friday
8:00am-4:00pm Saturday
9:00am-3:00pm Sunday

The Shortlist on Urbanspoon

Petty Cash Interior

Who doesn’t love the inner west? With its rockabilly, gritty aesthetic, it’s mostly-gentrified streets, its plethora of ethnic restaurants. There’s always something to do, something to see. Every day is a photo opp for one of those clichéd photographic exhibitions City of Sydney puts on in Hyde Park about the real/dark side of/contrasting Sydney – a nun smiling arm in arm with a drag queen, a beaming Italian man out the front of his bakery next door to a brothel. It’s a Sydney that may or may not exist, depending on where you are and who you talk to.

One place that definitely exists is the Petty Cash Café, a retro marvel on the Marrickville/Enmore border right next to Enmore Park. One Saturday morning Rui and I are just driving around, drinking in the visuals when we spot it on a sun-drenched corner. We pull over next to a couple of drool-worthy vintage cars and high tail it across the road to nab a table. Never mind the fact that we’ve already had a coffee this morning- I’ll break my one-coffee-a-day rule for the chance to try somewhere new.

petty cash cafe exterior

Petty Cash Cafe is one of those places that just begs to be photographed. Perched on the leafy Victoria road it has the retro/rockabilly vibe that I find so much more comfortable than the bare ligtbulbs, concrete floors and upcycled bicycle seat stools of the hipster aesthetic, although those things have their place as well. I love the clashing green/orange/red/warm timber, the retro furniture, the zany sugar bowls, the clientele and staff in the kind of getup I could never even envisage. It’s a feast for the eye.

Macchiato and picolo @ Petty Cash cafe

We plonk ourselves down at a chessboard table and order our standards. The food is served on mismatched china, although we don’t partake. The cafe offers what you’d expect- all day breakfast, gluten-free baked treats, lunch offerings and delicious coffee. I’d love to come back and have breakky some time but we don’t seem to do that much anymore.

Miss Petty Cash

Our coffees arrive and there’s no need to rush. I sit and look out the window at the park which, from this angle actually looks pretty amazing as Rui, true to form, plays with his phone. I people watch inner-west parents weilding SUV-sized prams, goths and hipsters taking their Saturday morning stroll side by side, kids clambering over the newly erected playground and an old lady wheeling her groceries back from the Metro. Now all we need is a nun and a drag queen and we’ll be right to set up in Hyde Park…

Miss Petty Cash
68 Victoria Road
Marrickville 2204
(02) 9557 2377

Petty Cash Cafe on Urbanspoon

‘We need to go out and have coffee,’ Senhor R said sternly one morning. I sighed. ‘Fine!’ I said ‘Let’s go!”. Oh wait, that’s right. I like coffee. But when someone tells me to do something, I straight away want to do the opposite.

Not to mention that these last couple of weekends have been like mini coffee tours as we try to drink and photograph as many coffees as possible, preferably on a Saturday. This is because I started falling behind. I got a bit busy, I got a bit lazy. I got a job. I graduated. It was my birthday. These are all good things, but let’s face it, they don’t leave much time for coffee dates. I really need to get my priorities straight.

When Senhor R and I sit down in a cafe, every single time without fail, they give me his coffee and they give him mine. This happens whether the same person who took our order brings us the coffees or not, whether I order or Senhor R orders or whether we both order. Apparently a piccolo latte is a ladies’ drink, while a macchiato is super-machismo. Ah, well. I don’t mind wearing the metaphorical pants for a while.

Crave espresso is a place I’d been meaning to revisit for a while, and Senhor R kept suggesting it. So naturally, like any good girlfriend, I put it at the bottom of my list. After all, it’s not far from home and we could go there anytime. And I do wear the pants.

The cafe part of Crave espresso is located above their warehouse in Alexandria. It’s one of those you’ve-gotta-know-where-to-look places but they do pretty good trade from the surrounding apartments. When we arrived on a Saturday morning they were relatively full, but it soon cleared out. We ordered our usuals, swapped coffees and sipped. Impressive flavour, more so than I remembered. In fact, we liked it so much that Senhor R got them to grind us a 250g bag of whatever we were drinking to take away. I know, I know. I should’ve been taking notes. But frankly I was too caffeinated to care what I was drinking. I was too busy enjoying it.

I recommend checking out crave espresso if you get a chance. The owners are friendly, the coffee is solid and you can take some home if you’re that way inclined. And don’t do what I do when someone tells me to do something. Don’t do the opposite.




Crave Espresso Bar
Unit 72, 20-28 Maddox St
Alexandria 2015
(02) 9516 1217
www.cravecoffee.com.au

Crave Espresso Bar on Urbanspoon

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So by now you probably know the macchiato is my current coffee of choice. I love an espresso or a ristretto, but a few too many black-coffee-on-an-empty-stomach days on a Portuguese holiday kinda cured me of the habit, as did my frugal nature; $3 or more for a shot of coffee with no additions just seems like bad value. A macchiato is also a bet-hedging drink; the milk tempers a short black which may or may not be brilliant, hiding any extra bitterness it may have. Here’s a list of 3 places I think make a great one (in no particular order).

1. Plunge Coffee, Summer Hill
This had been on my wishlist for ages and I wasn’t disappointed. Sitting on a street that real estate agents would describe as ‘funky’ and local council marketing would describe as ‘a village’, it’s a nice place to sit and there’s plenty of seating. The coffees here are beautiful and taste as good as they look. A bit steep at $3.50 but the milk is silky smooth and so is the flavour. They use coffee alchemy coffee.

Plunge Cafe
48 Lackey Street,
Summer Hill NSW 2130
(02)9799 9666
www.plungecafe.com.au

Plunge Cafe on Urbanspoon

2. Le Grand Café, Clarence Street
The café in the foyer of Alliance Française sells scrummy looking pastries by Bécasse and does more substantial food as well, but I’m more interested in their coffee. All coffees are $3, unless you prepay and buy a bunch at a time and then the work out at $2.50 each. They use Allpress coffee which I like and their macs are not too long with a generous daub of froth. The service is good too.

Le Grand Café
257 Clarence Street,
Sydney CBD NSW 2000
(02) 9267 1755
http://www.afsydney.com.au/Cafe/Default.aspx

Le Grand Cafe on Urbanspoon

3. Single Origin Roasters, Surry Hills
This macchiato is so ridiculously expensive I considered not recommending Single Origin on that basis. It is also hipster paradise and only open on weekdays. That said for $4 you’ll feel no qualms about returning it if it’s not to your liking. I’ve been there quite a few times and have never had to. You also get a choice of beans if you so desire. The branding of this place is such that 250g bags are sold at 15 bucks a pop. Not so rapt on the tiny stools and tables either.

Single Origin Roasters
64 Reservoir Street,
Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9211 0665
www.singleorigin.com.au

Single Origin Roasters on Urbanspoon

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