It's a BIG converted house. We aren't talking a small starter home. It's a heritage house, a big wooden building, stretching over three storeys (I've been in the unrenovated attic. It looks like my crazy great aunt's attic. If I had a crazy maiden great aunt). The first floor has space for 40-50 covers and a coffee bar. Plus the fully functioning kitchen. On the second floor, there's more dining space and meeting space if you want to book a nice, vintage feeling area for an intimate cocktail reception.
Back on the ground floor, there's the main business of the general admission cafe/restaurant, pushing out brunch. The philosophy is natural ingredients, nutrient-rich foods and seasonal choices. Combined with a desire to make interesting food, and not just quinoa, kale and aubergine stew for everyone.
There was plenty of tasty, tasty kale for those that want it. One of our group didn't, choosing to pass on the option of an Eggs Benedict piled up on a green-bean-and-kale base (Benny in the Moment), instead of the normal muffin. Even my love of the green leafed 'super food' passed at that option. We also passed by on the small cups of bone broth that were on the brunch menu. It's all very good, I am sure, but not before I have had my coffee!
Instead, I went for a standard breakfast, paired with an americano coffee. The coffee was good, rich and smooth, with a big flavour to wake up my morning. So it didn't last to long in the cup. Was offered plenty of refills of drip coffee, but decide to hydrate with the rosemary infused water on the table. I assume it was meant to be in the milk bottle, and not a poor cleaning job by the Avalon diary from whom the bottle had been purloined (those things have a big deposit on them, wonder if they know there's about $100 of glassware here?). The water didn't really taste of rosemary.
The breakfast was a platter of good stuff: a fistful of kale dressed in a light dressing, two soft poached eggs with thick golden yolks, a slice of seed toast, some potatoes and a herb and leek sausage. The kale was kale. If you like kale, you'll like it. If you don't, this is raw kale. It tastes of raw kale. The seed toast was crunchy and mostly seeds. One slice with a smear of butter and little bit of the soft apple was tasty.
The potatoes were rich and earthy and flavourful. They probably could have been fluffier or crispier... they weren't new waxy spuds, so the consistency of them was -like- they were slightly undercooked. They weren't but, something didn't seem quite right.
The sausage was a let-down (my fault for not choosing the bacon). It had no flavour beyond the seasoning, and tasted like it had been boiled or steamed, with very little time on the grill. Grill time makes meat taste better (in general) by the chemical reactions that occur when it browns. And when the fat in the meat gets a chance to melt and merge around with the rest of the filling. Wasn't impressed with whatever they had done here instead.
Two of my friends had the pancakes. These were more like big slices of fresh cake. Huge thick triangles of oatmeal. There wasn't much of them, though.
The dining room is great, bright airy and comfortable. The food is served to please the eyes, the staff are bright and cheery, and everything seems to be working in the right direction. The menu is encased in an old hard backed book. Maybe there's just a little sense of trying a bit too hard to be different that unsettled me a little?
That all said I think I'd go back to try some other dishes out. I like the concepts and the rest of the menu looked good, and I did feel good and ready to face the world.
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