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19 St Andrews Street (corner Church Street), Brighton, 9593 3129
My score: 3.5/5
It’s more fun to eat waffles with chocolate mousse than to parse Latin texts. That’s why I’m glad to visit Brighton Schoolhouse now rather than in the mid-19th century when it was school number 44 and, if records are to be believed, sadly lacking in bircher muesli, kale juice or espresso. No wonder it didn’t last.
A few operators have tried their luck in this dramatic ironstone building. The new consortium (which includes Hawthorn footballer Josh Gibson) is a clever pitch at a tough crowd with a mix of wildly healthy and superbly indulgent food and drink and an aim-to-please outlook, expressed in such things as a respectful kids’ menu and a ‘your local chemist’ selection that includes juices, Berocca, Bloody Mary and a toothbrush. School chic means timber desks, bashed up lockers and vintage games but a steampunk coffee roaster says less about Victorian-era education and more about 21st century Melbourne. Even cuter: tea comes with egg timers to ensure perfect brews. The enormous patio has a playground, shade and a lot of people ordering complicated coffees (“skinny decaf latte in a long glass”) and Instagramming photos of one another’s designer dogs (I admit baby pugs are adorable.). The waiters are impossibly good-looking and the food is spunky too.
Porridge is made with oats, activated nuts, dried blueberries and crisp freeze-dried raspberries. I can’t imagine how much Pilates a person would have to do to finish the huge serve (more yoghurt might help) but it’s wholesome and tasty. The quinoa with truffle-flavoured poached eggs, fried haloumi and pea puree is a bowl of brunchy brilliance. A buy-local ethic extends to the Tasmanian quinoa. The western world’s love of this super-seed has put it out of reach of many of its South American farmers, a fact that’s flagged on the menu. I’m impressed by this global outlook. Lunch stuff includes pies, burgers and gorgeous salads. Baby beets with greens and garlic crisps are the prettiest but I loved the juicy, sunny tomato salad, scattered with torn mozzarella and crunchy olive crumb.
The nicey-niceness ebbs when you head to the toilets, shared with the adjoining church and with a scrappy institutional feel to them, as though a naughty choirboy with a cigarette might emerge from a stall. Detention at this schoolhouse, however, would be no punishment at all.
See their website.
More summer scenes:
St Ali North, 815 Nicholson Street, Carlton North, 9380 5499
Find a park for your bike and settle in for smashing breakfasts, inspired lunches, cool juices and ace coffee.
Naked in the Sky, 285 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, 9416 2238
Melbourne never looked better than from this rooftop snackery. Vodka and Basque food are the focus.
Boatbuilders Yard, 23 South Wharf Road, South Wharf, 9686 5088
Just by Polly Woodside on the Yarra, there’s bocce, beer, cocktail pitchers and barbecues at this massive, mostly outdoor hangout.
First published in The Age, December 8, 2013.
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