Industry Beans
MELBOURNE AND SYDNEY enjoy a siblinglike rivalry, but also an excellent cultural exchange program that has seen Huxtaburger and Belles Hot Chicken move north while we’ve sent gelato emissaries south in the form of Messina outlets. That’s why we now also have our very own outlet of Fitzroy’s famous café with fine dining sensibilities, Industry Beans, and it’s so Melbourne it hurts. They’ve chosen one of the city’s more stylish shopfronts along York Street as a base of operations, so there’s rough-hewn sandstone and graceful curved arches on the facade to set the scene. Inside, it’s a glowing white central command of caffeine, with one long counter dedicated to taps and spouts that look like they might moonlight as 3D printers for Westworld hosts when they’re not making espressi and filter brews. The coffee menu is as elaborate as it is informative, with tasting notes, information about the beans’ origins and backstories for the single origin offerings. You need to look closely for the key on the far right that tells you whether it’s a batch brew, cold brew or bubble coffee. Order the fruit sashimi, a beauty queen of a breakfast dish. But there are more prosaic options too, like a golden omelette run through with basil for morning pesto vibes, or smashed avo with flourishes like a charred lemon cheek and beetroot dust. Enquiries are made, and cinnamon-dusted brioche with tonka bean ice cream, maple-roasted peanuts, blackberry coulis, raspberry dust and coffee caviar is summarised as “a stack of doughnuts with ice cream”. Coffee is the real reason you’re here, and they are unquestionably good at it. A Fitzroy Street cold brew is lively and fruity, with an elegant nuttiness, while an autumn blend in a three-quarter flat white is every bit the roasty caramel experience you hope for from your morning hit.