Sydney's Best New Cafes of 2016
Honouring the best new cafes on Sydney's cafe scene this year.
Sydney's Best New Cafes of 2016
Honouring the best new cafes on Sydney's cafe scene this year.
In a year that saw Sydney's cultural ecosystem and the legislative shackling of certain elements of it become a more polarising subject than ever before, the city's most innovative, forward-thinking residents have made outstanding lemonade. Some get up earlier than most, Sydney's cafe crowd, who continue to cultivate compelling coffee breaks and brunches for locals, building neighbourhood haunts from pop-up to permanency, championing local producers and turning old bowling clubs into urban farms.
At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Sydney to be a better, braver city. And so, these six new cafes, opened in 2016, have been nominated for Best New Cafe in Concrete Playground's Best of 2016 Awards.
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Sydney’s Camperdown Commons — which encompasses Pocket City Farms and adjoining restaurant, Acre Eatery — has been the talk of the town in recent months. The stunning transformation of the dilapidated Camperdown Bowling Club into a full-blown urban farm and restaurant has turned the neglected space into a site for fresh organic produce and a farm-to-table eating. The restaurant’s official opening was met with throngs of excited locals, but it wasn’t until the farm’s first harvest that we’ve really been able to see this partnership in action — and what a delicious partnership it is.
Acre is a gorgeous 350-seater, with beautiful wooden tables and Hamptons-style white chairs and booths. Every detail seems to have been meticulously chosen, from the signature wine glasses to the impeccably-presented table settings and dinnerware, which includes natural tree boards used as plates. The warm, bustling atmosphere is helped along by the incredibly professional and knowledgeable staff that also seem to have a personal stake in the restaurant’s concept. Since opening, the farm is growing rapidly and the harvest is being used readily in the restaurant, with about 20 percent of head chef Gareth Howard’s menu grown on-premises.
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If Erskine Villa set out to be a cafe for the community, they found a pretty good site to set up on. The Erskineville Road eatery sits on land that was once the foundation for Reverend Henry Erskine’s home Erskine Villa, after which the inner west suburb — and, evidently, the eatery — was named.
That’s where it starts though — not where it ends. Erskine Villa goes beyond what a standard cafe offers, staying open for dinner and drop-in drinks three nights a week and hosting local live music, artists and other cultural happenings. They run a $5 happy hour from 4-7pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and, since opening this year, they’ve held a gin night with Newtown’s Young Henrys, and another dedicated to childhood party games. Because if musical chairs doesn’t bring the community together, what will?
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Ever since we first visited the Eveleigh Creative Precinct, a newly developed arts and culture precinct in Redfern, to check out the Cake Wines Cellar Door, we knew the space was in for something special. And Henry Lee’s is the latest delicious tenant to open its doors in the creative hub. Preceded by the recent launch of the cellar door and design spaces by Frost Collective and Massive Interactive, this new concept cafe is in great company — and it’s bringing even more local talent into the mix.
The kitchen is all about seasonal produce, sustainable living and supporting the area’s ever-expanding creative populous, whether it be in the food and drink industry, or arts and culture. Keeping it local may be the trend of the moment (and one that’s supported by CP), but Henry Lee’s is certainly putting their own distinct spin on the concept — one we haven’t seen in many other cafes.This well-crafted menu is no surprise from founders Kath and Aaron Devaney, who have owned and operated two well-regarded cafes on the Central Coast (Black Treacle Cafe & Bakery and Long Jetty’s Green Tangerine) and are sincerely passionate about the artisanal vibe.
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Tinker on your motorbike and slurp your way through bowel of ramen on the same premises at Rising Sun Workshop’s permanent Newtown digs. For the uninitiated, Rising Sun is a social enterprise that serves two purposes. On one hand, it provides its motor-revving members with a communal space for repairing and polishing up their bikes. On the other, it’s a café, serving coffee, cookies and seriously killer ramen.
The independent organisation was started by three friends, Adrian, Heleana and Dan, who love riding bikes, working on bikes and chatting about bikes while drinking coffee. They decided that Sydney needed an open, friendly, affordable space where this could happen more often. So, in 2013 they crowdfunding a cool $40,000 and launched a pop-up the next year. Now, it’s permanent, You’ll find Rising Sun’s new workshop at 1C Whateley Street. It used to house a century-old hardware store, and the menu has scored a serious upgrade. You can now get nosh at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and you’ll find some Southern influences mixing with Japanese tradition.
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Perched on the lower end of Campbell Street, Café Rumah could easily be overlooked. But poke your head inside their bright pastel doors, and you’ll find a unique retail-meets-dining space that has, quite literally, come straight from Malaysia.
The brunch spot takes up the ground level of the Surry Hills space, covering off the food and drink side of things, while upstairs houses Malaysian menswear boutique, 15sheets. The store is the second outlet for owner Riszal Nawawi, whose first one has been operating in the Kuala Lumpur neighbourhood of Bangsar since 2013. Food-wise, Rumah uses traditional ingredients and signature dishes from both Malaysia and Singapore, giving classic menu items an unexpected twist.
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If you thought NYC was the only city proudly dominating the global bagel scene, you’ve overlooked Montreal. Canada’s creative, culinary-minded city has a fierce bagel industry, with longtime bagel houses like St-Viateur and Fairmount waging war over ‘best bagel’ naming rights. Now, Sydney’s got a piece of the action, with seasoned coffee roasters and San Fransisco-trained bakers Mark Treviranus and Dave Young opening a Montreal-style bagelry in Woolloomooloo.
With a little shopfront on Cathedral Street, Smoking Gun Bagels is Sydney’s first bagelry to serve authentic Montreal-style bagels. The bagels are made on-site in what’s apparently Australia’s largest purpose-built bagel woodfired oven — sitting at 14 tonnes, constructed by stone masons and flown in from Canada, so it’s legit. Melbourne’s already got a Montreal-style bagelry in Mile End, but this is Sydney’s first.
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