Rosebank Coffee and Kitchen
A touch of glamour hits an Avondale cafe’s menu — and prices
SET UP & SITE
The Rosebank Rd industrial corridor has traditionally been poorly served by establishments offering jamon iberica, goat’s feta and confit mushrooms. Similarly under-represented in the area have been places charging $18 for bacon and eggs. Thus, stepping into this establishment in this location is not so much an experience of the unexpected as it is a close encounter of the third kind. It’s a big, cleanly designed open space of steel, pale wood and polished concrete, with a self-opening door. SUSTENANCE & SWILL Say what you want about bread gnocchi but, served at Rosebank Coffee and Kitchen with poached eggs, mushrooms, herbed cream cheese, confit lemon and thyme ($19.50), it’s an embarrassment of richness. Innovative brunch dishes generally fall into two categories — overwrought and unnecessary — and this is neither. I ordered the overpriced bacon and eggs with a side of german hash ($ 18, plus $ 6.50 for the hash). The bacon was cut about a centimetre thick, which made it proportionately significantly less greasy, less mucky, more densely flavourful and more fun than your typical brunch bacon — fun is an under- rated concept in a brunch scene too often caught up in its own seriousness. Less fun were the two tiny semicircles of sourdough that sat on the very margins of the plate, looking fearfully inward at the yolky goodness of the poached eggs, against which they were so overmatched. The hash was all-killer: light and thin — the crisscrossed potato strands proudly, topographically, distinguishable from each other — and it was vaguely sweetened with apple puree and cinnamon. Our 3-year-old had a brown butter donut — which sounded and looked delicious but only she could tell you for sure — and most of my bacon.
SERVICE & OTHER STUFF
We had texted a couple of friends to ask them to come with us and one of them replied, “Oh my God, we went there last week and waited 45 minutes for two coffees and a lemon slice. We had to walk out.” Our expectations were, therefore, low. We went there late on a Saturday morning and the place was only half full, while the service was thorough, mad-casual, and friendly as could be. Let’s call the week before an aberration.