Cordial is the closest cafe to my house, and I never go there. There’s a reason for this. The friendly, family-style service is great, that’s not it. And it’s not the decent range of humble breakfast products on the menu – I like being able to get a toastie on thick, pillowy white bread rather than a sprouted rye every […]
Cordial, Newtown
Store Espresso, Camperdown ⭐
Store Espresso is the real deal – an authentic example of well-executed local cafe culture. Store has a wide-ranging menu, is very accommodating to individual requests and delivers very personalised service. The owner is a bit of a character and a recognised local who really understands his targeted audience and knows how to work Store’s fantastic parkside location, with its […]
Gather on the Green, Camperdown
This was my old local. I lived directly across the road, so I started getting my coffee here every morning, but it was really not great. A bit over-extracted, a bit watery, in Campos cups but it didn’t taste like Campos to me. Gather is a prime example of a cafe that has been bought, rather than started, in the […]
The aftermath of the Sydney coffee boom
Newtown was the epicentre of the Sydney coffee boom from about 2005-2010. This coincided with my uni days, while I was living in Newtown for the first time and frequenting all these groovy little cafes started by hipsters with a passion for coffee, a hoard of retro kitsch, and the naive assumption that that was all you needed. At the […]
How I feel about non-dairy milk
Soy makes everything taste like soy. I can’t taste the coffee. All I can taste is soy. It’s much less forgiving with temperature and is very easily overheated, more often than not resulting in a soy puck – that thick layer of soy foam at the bottom of your cup once your coffee has cooled. Even top-quality soy, frothed perfectly […]
What’s in a dirty chai?
A good chai is usually an in-house blend of bold spices, steamed in a good quality non-dairy milk, served through a strainer with a cinnamon quill and honey on the side. I like to sip it using the quill as a straw and let my mood dictate whether or not I add the honey. But you can’t dirty up a […]
Shenkin Espresso Bar, Newtown ⭐
First up, my local, my go-to, my good ol’ reliable, right-in-the-middle-of-everything purveyor of consistent coffee and BB *drumroll*… Shenkin Espresso Bar. Not to be confused with the original Shenkin on Erskineville Rd, and certainly not to be confused with the puzzling string of Shenkin Kitchens all over the place (of which Enmore, I think, is the only one left), Shenkin […]
The Rating System
-1, 0, 1 can sometimes feel a little oversimplified. But it is what it is. If you want a rating out of 5 stars, Google it. Nevertheless, here are a few notes clarifying what I mean for each rating: -1 ☹: “I’m disappointed.” This means it was reasonable to expect something better, and it wasn’t up to a basic standard […]
What I Order
But first, what am I ordering? Coffee: Flat white. In order to properly rate the coffee itself, shouldn’t I order an espresso? Yes, purist, but remember I still need to take the thing to the park and drink it. If I get a -1 espresso, I’m not drinking it, so then I’d have to go without my morning coffee entirely. […]
The Pursuit of Banana Bread
You know there’s something wrong when getting a takeaway coffee becomes the highlight of your morning. It became the highlight of my morning mid-2022, a few months after my second baby was born. I found myself waddling a double-pram to the park each morning and proceeding to sit and with my eyes trained on a toddler who required constant observation […]