french toast

There are cafes in Melbourne who go out of their way to look retro, grungy and a bit alley-cat like. Since starting this blog and covering the north, west and CBD surrounding suburbs I’ve become accustomed to this kind of ‘look’, even expecting it. So when I ate at Pearl Oyster it wasn’t anything new. The retro, eclectic décor, the bric-a-brac style tables and chairs, the waitresses dressed in costumes from The Sound of Music….it was all fairly typical.

I knew I was in for a treat* when 50% of the clientele at Urban Café were bike short wearing professionals ordering a double mocha skinny latte on their way to their desk jobs, and the other half were retirees with their handbags tucked safely into one armpit (they were in the city after all, and in the city people like me roll old bats for their pension money and sensible shoes). Turns out this 50% were also generally unaccommodating of the idea of a share table, which made it hard seeing as this makes up half of the seating at the café.

It was a beautiful summer’s day in Melbourne, so to escape the torrential rain I headed for Bluebird Espresso in Collingwood, a recommendation from one of our Twitter followers. Unfortunately, I have a habit of blinking to keep my eyes from shrivelling up in my skull, and therefore I drove past Bluebird three times. After eventually conceding, parking atop another vehicle and walking what seemed the entire length of Johnston Street, I fell over a little blue chair that I thought had been carelessly left on the walkway. Alas, it was Bluebird. And what a quirky little place it turned out to be.

I’ll go anywhere that allows me to don a head sweatband, sing 80’s rock songs at the top of my lungs in a packed cafe and then lets me pass it off as an ode to the locals. I’m pleased to announce Rosanna is such a place. Luckily the area also serves up edible items for all to consume, otherwise this review would be a bit out of place.

Hardware Lane. You know it. It’s where you take out of towners to try and impress them with Melbourne’s multiculturalism (‘look everyone! We have pasta! Eat your heart out, Rome!’) or friends to show them you know cool places to drink (look guys! Beer on a roof! How hip am I?!). It’s not, however, the hub of activity in the mornings which, in the CBD, is actually a relief. Especially if you stumble across a delightful little place like Affogato as I did.