Townhouse

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466 Toorak Road, Toorak, 9973 8721

My score: 3.5/5

Hot summer days and warm drinks go together like Vegemite and peaches (that is, badly; I tried it so you don’t have to). But the desire for coffee is a year-round yearning. Solution: bring on the cold coffee. In the current climes of thoughtful caffeination, iced coffee does not mean a beige beverage with whipped cream and little interest in keeping a body awake. At Townhouse, it means smooth and lively cold drip coffee served in a stemless wine glass over ice. It also denotes swank Vietnamese-style iced coffee with a syrupy slug of condensed milk. They’re both good: the cold drip is an excruciatingly slow process – one litre takes about five hours to dribble through – but the result has true coffee character.

Townhouse is about to celebrate its first birthday. It’s bright, elegant and unencumbered by the fusty mock Tudor building that is its home. You may have preconceptions about Toorak cafes: that the customers inevitably discuss (and display) the latest innovations in lip plumping; that the smell of new car fights the waft of hair product for title of fragrance du jour; that regular clients include schnoodles who simply adore coming after a blow wave. These presumptions are simply ridiculous – at least sometimes.

You can expect classy twists on breakfast classics like the smoked salmon and poached eggs on rye with preserved lemon hollandaise (a chi-chi eggs benedict), or the sticky brioche French toast with grilled banana, walnut crumble and fluffy coffee mousse (another pleasing iteration of cold coffee). Lunch is fancy sandwiches and excellent salads, including the symphony in green that is the shaved zucchini, broad bean, rocket and kiwifruit melange. “Kiwi in a salad!” I spluttered, but it works, even when eaten with the black olive crumb and pecorino cheese that also adorn the plate. It’s enough to make a person give Vegemite and peach another go.

More cold coffee:

Touchwood, 480 Bridge Road, Richmond, 9429 9347
It had to happen: cold drip coffee is made with coconut water at this on-trend cafe where the juice options include kale and the salmon might be cured in tequila.

Addict Food and Coffee, 240 Johnston Street, Fitzroy, 9415 6420
Grab a bottle of iced latte and cool down as you wake up. The breakfast sharing board is a cool spread of savoury and sweet stuff for those who start the day hungry but indecisive.

Industry Beans, 3/62 Rose Street, Fitzroy, 9417 1034
If it can be done with coffee, it’s happening at this specialty roaster. The seasonal coffee menu is more detailed than many wine lists and features cold drip and brew coffee from Kenya and Honduras. (Iced tea and great brunch too!)

First published in The Age, November 30, 2014.