MCA Cafe

Overview

Next time you're looking for a healthy lunchtime meal near Circular Quay, you'll be able to head to the MCA. Its in-house cafe, which has a lovely outdoor terrace overlooking the harbour, has just launched a new vegetarian menu in collaboration with Sydney cafe and picklery Cornersmith. In great news for CBD pickle lovers, it means that you'll be able to get your daily dose of the cafe's salty and briny vegetables (in toasties, salads and bibimbaps) without heading out to Annandale or Marrickville.

The Cornersmith menu, which launched on Friday, March 1, is available from 10am–4pm every day — and till 9pm on Wednesdays (when the gallery stays open late). Its launch corresponds with the gallery's new exhibition, Janet Laurence: After Nature, which explores the environmental challenges facing the world today — from coral bleaching to deforestation — through living sculpture, photography and video.

It's only fitting, then, that Cornersmith's ethos is also focused on the environment. The cafe and cooking school advocates low-waste and uses minimal meat and produce that is sourced locally and sustainably. And it's making damn tasty fare — and it's super affordable, too.

Everything on the new MCA Cafe is under $20 — from the kimchi and cheddar toastie with coriander slaw ($12) to the a brown rice bibimbap with kimchi ($16) and poached egg roll with red cabbage, chilli and pickles ($10). Meat-eaters will be happy to know that they can add leg ham ($2) to the latter if they please, while vegans will find solace in the Vegan Surprise Plate ($16), which comes complete with vegan cheese.

Like the MCA's new exhibition, the Cornersmith menu is around for a good time, not a long time. So if you'd like to get your city dose of Cornersmith eats, you'll need to head along before Monday, June 10, 2019. The regular MCA Cafe menu will also be available during this time.