New York coffee break: Ground Support

Shopping and sight-seeing around SoHo can be a serious and time-consuming business, so a decent coffee stop is very welcome. And Ground Support in West Broadway is just the ticket.

Light, airy and open, Ground Support was once an art galley and funky artwork still adorns its walls. It attracts a mixed crowd of locals and tourists, who cram inside at rough wooden tables, or spill outside into the adjoining courtyard.

A smooth cafe latte is strong and nutty, or there's single-origin Chemex drip coffee or cold-brew iced coffee. Sandwiches are artfully wrapped in brown paper tied with string and are big enough to share between two.

Ground Support
399 West Broadway (Spring St)
SoHo

New York coffee break: 88 Orchard

While waiting for our tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, we stumbled across 88 Orchard, a little cafe on the corner of Orchard and Broome Streets in the Lower East Side. Once one of the most miserable areas in New York, its tenements crowded with recently arrived migrants, this little pocket is now gentrified, with cafes and expensive clothing stores occupying the ground floors of renovated tenement buildings with beautifully artistic and decorative wrought-iron balconies and fire stairs. It's difficult to reconcile this pretty area, its streets crowded with expensively dressed locals and tourists, with the misery experienced by some of the migrants who moved here in the 1800s. (If you are visiting New York, I highly recommend a visit to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum - one of the highlights of our trip).

88 Orchard is a two-storey cafe, with the serving area and counter on the ground floor and more tables available downstairs, which was fully occupied by people tapping away on laptops on our visit.

The coffee is served in coloured mugs that are more like tea-cups than coffee cups. Our cafe lattes had a chocolatey aroma and the milk was creamy. The sandwiches and salads looked enticing but we didn't have time to eat before our tour. This is a good little cafe to pass the time while waiting to visit the museum.

88 Orchard Cafe
88 Orchard St (at Broome St)
Lower East Side

New York coffee break: Iris Cafe

Iris Cafe is a perfect little neighbourhood cafe. Situated in a pretty corner of Brooklyn Heights, with tree-lined streets of beautiful old brownstones, Iris's little shopfront windows almost blend into the surroundings.
Although the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is just behind this residential pocket, it is a quiet area and the traffic noise is just a low buzz in the background.

Inside, the French-accented decor is perfectly suited to the pressed metal ceiling and exposed mellow brick walls. Gilt frames hold blackboards featuring the menu, while the subtle yet pretty burgundy-brown striped laminate on the tables proves that practicality doesn't have to be ugly. Artworks includes artisan black-and-white photos of busy hands, kneading bread and holding grapes or quiche.

The simple menu focuses on breakfast and lunch dishes. Maple granola is crunchy and sweet, while the egg salad baguette is stylishly wrapped in brown paper tied with string. The salad is fresh, with plenty of egg mixed with tangy mayonnaise and lettuce. A highlight is the sticky cinnamon bun: soft bread loaded with plenty of cinnamon flavour but it is not tooth-achingly sweet.

Cafe lattes are served in huge cups almost the size of soup bowls. Thankfully, the lattes are made with double shots, so there is a good taste of strong espresso, which is not overwhelmed by the milk.

Iris Cafe is a perfect little neighbourhood cafe. Another homely touch is added by the "Please place your dishes here" sign in the corner (where patrons dutifully deposit their dirty crockery). If I could replicate one New York cafe in its entirety back home in Melbourne, it is this one. If you're planning on walking the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, allow an extra hour and come here first for breakfast or lunch. You won't be sorry.

Iris Cafe
20 Columbia Place (Joralemon St)
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn

New York review: Bubby's

Honest home-style cooking might not sound like the best enticement for a cafe but Bubby's proves there is a market for food that combines the best of home cooking with a chef's flair.

Brunch is the main attraction at Bubby's in Tribeca (there is also an outlet in DUMBO, Brooklyn). With just 100 seats, chef Ron Silver says Bubby's still manages to serve brunch to more than 1400 people each weekend, whether they are locals, celebrities or tourists.

The menu's focus is on American cookery from every region. Ron Silver says he has collected recipes over the years, many of which are family heirlooms handed down for generations. "My goal has been to create, with a few changes, home cooking the way I remember it from my childhood," he writes in his Bubby's Brunch Cookbook.

The breakfast menu includes Bubby's famous sour cream pancakes, wild Maine blueberry pancakes, egg dishes using free-range eggs from Shady Maple Farm, Anson Mills whole hominy organic Carolina grits and homefries.

We opt for two plates of Bubby's Breakfast: two eggs, homefries or grits, bacon and toast. The servings are huge, with four pieces of toast, but the food is well-cooked and delicious. The grits are satisfying smooth while the homefries are tasty and crispy. It is an excellent way to start the day and it's easy to see why Bubby's has been embraced by locals since it opened in 1990.

Best of all, you can buy Bubby's Brunch Cookbook or Bubby's Homemade Pies on your way out and recreated your own little piece of Bubby's at home.

Bubby's, 120 Hudson St, Tribeca
Tue-Sun open 24 hours (Sat and Sun brunch 9am-4pm)
Mon open until midnight

New York breakfast: Clinton St Baking Company

In a city of 8 million people, queues at peak times are not unexpected. But at mid-morning mid-week? This is normally a quiet time where diners can be almost guaranteed a table the minute they walk in.

At 10.30am on Wednesday, it was almost impossible to get in the door of Clinton St Baking Company for the amount of people milling around waiting for a table. A waitress quickly took our name and told us there would be a 30-minute wait. This suited as, we could visit Cafe Pedlar for coffee (situated in the same street at no 17) or the nearby Thompson Park, which apparently featured in Die Hard 2.

When we returned for our table, the crowd had not lessened and hopefuls were still putting their names down for a table. Clinton St Baking Company does not take reservations for brunch, and seats just 32, so this is the only way to get a table. I can't imagine what the queues are like on weekends!

If you do queue, don't despair as the wait is definitely worth it. Clinton St Baking Company has won a slew of awards and recognition, including "Best breakfast or brunch" by Time Out NY and "Best Pancakes" by New York Magazine, as well as being nominated for "Top 10 brunches" by the New York Observer.

The inside of the cafe is light and airy, with sunlight streaming in from the large windows looking streetside. It is busy and the place is buzzing with satisfied diners. Waitstaff whisk past with plate after plate loaded with meals and turnover is quick. As enticing as the brunch/breakfast menu sounded - buttermilk biscuit sandwich, truffle fried eggs and asparagus, southern breakfast or Spanish scramble, anyone? - pancakes was always going to be our choice.

But first up, to get us in the mood, was a decadently rich classic extra thick chocolate milkshake, made with ice-cream from The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.

It was a short wait for our plate of heaven: three pancakes drizzled with Wild Maine blueberries or banana and walnuts, with a dish of warm maple syrup butter on the side. The pancakes, almost the size of the serving plate, are paradoxically fluffy yet substantial: the texture is delicately light but it will be a very hungry diner who will be able to finish all three. The thick warm maple syrup butter has a dulce du leche flavour and is just as good being dipped into as it is drizzled over the pancakes.

So popular are the pancakes that they're on the menu all day - dinner is also served here. The cake display cabinet and dessert menu is also loaded with treasures that we unfortunately did not have the appetite to sample: an impressive-looking black and white layer cake, blueberry cheesecake, sour cherry lattice pie and classic hot fudge sundae.

In good news for New York visitors like me, who can't pop down for a regular fix of the best pancakes I've ever tasted, Clinton St Baking Company is scheduled to publish its own cookbook in November 2010.

Clinton St Baking Company
4 Clinton St (between East Houston and Stanton Streets)
www.clintonstbaking.com

New York coffee break: Cafe Pedlar

For most of its history, the Lower East Side has been a poor, working-class neighbourhood, providing the first home in the United States for generations of immigrants.

But in the past 10 years, the Lower East Side, like many inner-urban areas of major cities around the world, has undergone gentrification. And with gentrification comes coffee.

Cafe Pedlar's Manhattan outpost is in Clinton St, which is sandwiched between Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges. Clinton St itself is well-known for its dining establishments (including Clinton St Baking Co, famous for its pancakes). The street (which is easily reached by catching the F subway line to East Broadway) has a nice neighbourhood feel to it and there's an eclectic mix of shops. The street hasn't been taken over entirely by stylish cafes: little neighbourhood shops, such as a dry-cleaner, a newsagent and a hairdresser (advertising for braiders with experience) still fulfill the needs of local residents.

Cafe Pedlar has a very Melbourne feel. It is long and narrow, with exposed brick walls, but it's not dark, as light streams in from the large front windows. Shelves holding bottles of wine speak of its other life as a wine bar.

The cafe uses coffee beans from Stumptown (an independent coffee roaster and retailer based in Portland, Oregon) and all drinks are made with double shots - which is just as well, as the cups are twice the size of a standard Australian cup.

Intricate double rosettas on the cafe lattes make a pretty touch. The latte is quite milky but there is a strong, dark cocoa undertone that rounds out the creamy milk nicely.

Danishes, rolls, pretzels, tarts, muffins, cookies and cakes feature on the simple pastry-based menu. This is a great neighbourhood cafe, perfect for locals, but well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Cafe Pedlar
17 Clinton St (East Houston St), Lower East Side
210 Court St (Warren St), Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
www.cafepedlar.com

Where to eat? Our first night in New York

On a cold and wet Monday, Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village is looking far from the appealing, vibrant area that was described to us. Students mill around neon-lit entrances to pubs that reek of stale beer. Minetta Tavern, our planned destination, looks closed but the door opens to reveal a venue too crowded to fit us in anyway.

But, a few doors up MacDougal Street, we find Hummus Place. It's small and dimly lit but it looks inviting: the "Zagat Rated" sticker and only one empty table seal the deal.

It is tiny inside: barely three metres wide and a kitchen area that is almost the same size as the dining room mean that this place truly fits the cliche of "shoebox-sized". It seats about 24 people, with two-person tables dominating. The simple decor - just a few coloured platters on the wall - mean there is little distraction from the excellent food.

As the name suggests, this is a specialist venue. Of the eight entrees (mains), four are hummus-based. But don't be put off - this is hummus like you've never had before. It is gloriously thick, with a rich, complex layering of flavours that puts supermarket versions to shame. It is served with a basket of puffy, home-baked pita bread that will be replenished as often as you need. Hummus masabacha ($6.95) is plain hummus, topped with whole chickpeas and a dusting of paprika. Other hummus dishes come topped with whole fava beans and a boiled egg, tahini or sauteed mushrooms and onions. The unadorned version allows the pure flavours to shine through, but the caramelised mushrooms and onions add an extra layer that offsets the richness of the creamy hummus.

Before you get to hummus though, be sure to sample some of the five appetisers (entrees) on offer. Labane ($3.95) - a dish of strained yoghurt cheese with za'atar and olive oil - is a dish that sounds simple - perhaps even off-putting to some - on paper. But the description does not do it justice: the texture is similar to that of thick, whipped cream without the heaviness, and there is an underlying flavour reminiscent of spring in its fresh lightness. This sublime dish is perfect in every way and it is impossible to stop at just one scoop.

The roasted eggplant ($3.95), topped with tahini and lemon dressing, is also worth trying: the eggplant melts in the mouth, while the tahini topping adds a subtle smokiness.

Another specialty of Hummus Place is the shakshuka ($7.95), a rich stew of tomatoes, roasted capsicum, onions and eggplants topped with two fried (organic) eggs. This is a hearty and satisfying dish, yet it doesn't leave you feeling heavy or full afterwards.

There is a dinner special served Sunday to Thursday, with two appetisers, two entrees and a bottle of house wine (from Israel) for $39.95, which is a great way to sample the menu.

A place that is essentially a one-dish show might not sound lucrative but Hummus Place is now a mini-empire with five venues. But small can be good: this is a place that has its eye firmly on its product and has perfected it to the finest degree.

Hummus Place
99 MacDougal St (Bleecker St)
West Village
Also at four other locations: see www.hummusplace.com for more details.

Cafe review: Treat

Here is a cafe that is aptly named. Imaginative use of quality ingredients and excellent coffee makes Treat a favourite spot with locals, whether it's sharp-suited buyers' advocates and real estate agents, impeccably attired eastern suburban matrons, or designer-dressed bubs with their yummy mummies.

The outlook is pure urban industrial: a jumble of overhead train and tram cables, straggly trees wrapped around a chain wire fence that barricades the train tracks, and trams and cars jostling through the busy intersection of Malvern and Orrong roads.

But inside is elegant and refined, like much of the clientele. This wedge-shaped corner cafe is filled with light through its floor-to-ceiling windows. Designers have made clever use of the difficult triangular block, with a narrow entry widening out into a serene, inviting space that is busy without being crowded. One wall is lined with a dark brown leather banquette scattered with artsy cushions. Other small tables are grouped around the cafe, with the prize spot being a table-for-two overlooking Beattie Ave and bathed in soft sunlight.

This is a favourite spot for ladies who lunch and the menu caters accordingly. Use of excellent and expensive ingredients, such as yellowfin tuna, Atlantic salmon, ocean trout, smoked duck and zucchini flowers, makes Treat a place where you can indulge yourself with a fine meal during daylight hours.

During the warmer months, elegant salads and lighter dishes predominate on the lunch menu. A salad of crispy-skinned ocean trout fillet with kipflers and a delicate lemon caper sauce errs on the small side but is perfectly pitched to its audience.

For anyone not watching their weight or carb intake, there are more robust dishes on offer. Corned beef might be an old-fashioned ingredient not often seen on menus (although, in the post-GFC world, previously unfashionable cuts of meat are enjoying a resurgence), but here it is sexed up into elegant and satisfying comfort food. Three thick slices of warm corned beef and melted cheese is sandwiched with pickles and Dijon mayonnaise between sourdough bread. Testifying to its popularity, it's migrated from a permanent spot on the specials board to a place on the fixed menu. Another option is the satisfyingly large veal schnitzel roll. A crispy schnitzel and gruyere is folded into a roll, with roasted potatoes, braised soft red cabbage and a little bowl of garlicky mayonnaise on the side.

Sweet treats change daily and might feature a moist pistachio cake or a subtle Masala-laced date and rice pudding that is more of a tart than a pudding. Excellent cafe lattes come adorned with latte art.

If you prefer to be out and about earlier in the day, the breakfast menu also looks welcoming. Brioche French toast, salmon and sweetcorn hotcakes, semolina pancakes, toasted breakfast bagels and an egg white omelette are some of the options that should get your day off to a good start.

Treat, 736 Malvern Road, Armadale

Cafe review: Cornershop

Sometimes it's easier to identify when a cafe is doing something wrong, rather than when it's doing something right. Bad decor, poor lighting and acoustics, indifferent wait staff, bland food - these are all obvious markers. But a cafe that gets things right often does so in an unobtrusive way: the vibe just feels right, the coffee is good, the food is interesting and well executed, and you leave feeling upbeat.

Cornershop in Yarraville is a cafe that's doing things right. Run by a former partner at Le Chien, it ticks all the boxes. The vibe is warm and welcoming. Seating options include seats looking out of the big windows onto Ballarat St, at the rectangular communal table, at little tables along the wall or outside in the small, sunny courtyard which is heated with gas heaters in winter. Solitary diners tapping away on laptops, people reading books or newspapers and mums with bubs and prams in tow are all part of the mix.

Despite the large windows, the interior is quite dark but it's more welcoming and clubby than drab and uninviting. The dark floor and dark wooden tables are brightened by splashes of colour from the very busy, but not noisy, red coffee machine and the work/bar area is lined in pale-green pressed metal. The specials are featured on an old bookies' tote board , while the generous counter is lined with old-fashioned cake stands and platters full of cakes, biscuits and muffins.

A long black, made with the house Supreme blend, arrives quickly and is sweet on the palate, while the flat white is one of the best I've had in Yarraville. It's smooth and sweet, with no bitter aftertaste. Breakfast options include the usual suspects - scrambled or poached eggs, fruit toast and jam and Bircher muesli - plus some more special offerings such as ricotta hotcakes, Spanish beans with paprika and chorizo, and baked eggs, the composition of which changes each day. The lunch menu includes zucchini fritters, a steak sandwich, crystal bay prawns, salads and toasted pides.

Avocado on sourdough appears on both the breakfast and lunch menus. Rather than serving the toast with pre-mashed avocado smeared over it, this dish comes with a perfectly cut half of a large ripe avocado, topped with a jumble of rocket and fetta crumbles, beside two smallish pieces of thick sourdough, toasted to just the right golden-brown shade and generously buttered. It's a lovely and fresh summery dish, with the rocket and lemon juice adding a zing to the creamy fetta and smooth avocado.

Ricotta hotcakes come with fruit adjusted for the season: perhaps basil-poached peaches in summer and poached autumn fruits later in the year. Three misshapen ovals, shaped like pikelets but with a lighter texture thanks to the ricotta, are piping hot and barely any time must have elapsed since sliding them from the pan onto the plate and out the door to my table. The poached pears and dates are nicely spiced, with peppery star anise adding some bite to the soft cinnamon flavours.

There are several outstanding cafes already in Yarraville Village but Cornershop has carved out a comfortable niche for itself in a short time. Great coffee and an innovative menu ensures that this cafe is never short of a customer, despite the local competition and imminent demise of the restaurant industry predicted by pessimists spooked by the global financial crisis. Cornershop proves that cafe owners and operators who understand their market and get the fundamentals right will always have a loyal audience.

Cornershop, 9 Ballarat St, Yarraville.
9689 0052

Cafe review: Mart 130

Commuting is a necessary but unfortunate aspect of urban life, made especially frustrating if public transport is unreliable, as is often the case in Melbourne with our privatised public transport system. Train commuters regularly arrive at stations to find trains running late, while tram commuters adopt a particular stance that involves peering hopefully up the line to see if a tram is in sight.

If more tram stops and train stations had a cafe like Mart 130 available, commuters might be a happier bunch. Mart 130 is a bright, busy cafe located in the old stationmaster’s office at the Middle Park light-rail stop (it’s stop number 130 and “mart” is “tram” spelt backwards – cute). You can tuck yourself away in the warm interior that overlooks Carmelite tennis club and Albert Park, and imagine that you’re at any normal cafe, or sit outside above the platform and watch the trams glide past.

At 10.30 on a wintry Friday morning, Mart 130 is packed, so I take a table outside on the platform. As an icy wind drifts along the tracks, I feel a familiar, jaded commuter expression settle on my face and I can’t help myself peering up the line to see if anything’s coming. But, happily, I have a long black on the way and an interesting breakfast menu to peruse, which puts me in a much better frame of mind than a commuter running late for work who can’t even stop to grab a take-away.

The staff are friendly and efficient and, before my long black arrives, a waitress tells me a spot has become free inside at the window bench, so I quickly move, grateful to be under a heater. Why does the temperature at tram stops and train stations always seem to be a few degrees cooler than elsewhere?

Aside from the usual cafe breakfast standards such as porridge, granola muesli and Bircher muesli, there are some imaginative takes on other dishes on the menu. A triple stack of pancakes comes with either a berry compote or bacon and maple syrup. The French toast, made with brioche, may have a Middle Eastern influence of pistachio mascarpone and orange syrup, or be served with the more conventional grilled bacon. The menu sternly notes that “no alterations” are allowed to the four egg dishes, but this should not present a problem, as the options will tick most people’s boxes. Scrambled eggs come with chives, shaved parmesan, truffle oil, mushrooms and spinach. Large free-range poached eggs, with intense yellow and runny yolks, are served on a thick slice of sourdough bread, perhaps smeared with avocado and folds of smoked salmon.

Oven-roasted corn fritters, plump with juicy corn kernels, are stacked in a tower with alternating layers of grilled bacon and accompanied by sweet tomato relish and a scoop of sour cream (the coriander noted as part of the dish on the menu turns out to be a sad, solitary stalk). The bacon is full of intense, smoky flavours, and the fritters are pleasantly robust, although some spices in the fritters, or a more spicy tomato relish, would have lifted this dish to near-perfection.

There are large muffins or some cakes for the sweet tooths, while toasted pides and salads are on offer for lunch. Genovese is the brand of coffee served here and the coffee machine whirrs constantly in the background. Life as a commuter is infinitely sweeter with a cafe such as this at your tram stop but you’ll enjoy this place even more if you’re in no rush to head off somewhere else.

Mart 130, 107a Canterbury Rd (light-rail station), Middle Park
Open daily, 7.30am to 5pm

Food bites

With some free time on my hands as I prepare for a big house move, it's been nice to indulge in some foodie past-times recently. Packing up all my food magazines has taken quite a bit of time, as I stop to flick through the glossy pages and make yet more lists of recipes I want to try. The latest Donna Hay magazine has arrived and is full of enticing recipes and entertaining ideas. I'm trying not to stock up the cupboard or freezer with extra food at the moment, so have had to content myself with marking "must-try recipes" with sticky notes.

Emptying the freezer has enabled me to use up food and do some extra baking. The frozen raspberries left over from last year's berry picking have been turned into glorious jam and a raspberry and pistachio cake that was quickly gobbled up. Some of the frozen boysenberries were cooked in a sugar syrup and then sandwiched between puff pastry triangles with warm custard and dusted with icing sugar to make a quick and tasty dessert. In winter, I spent a wonderful day poaching quinces, the house filling with their wonderful spicy scent as they slowly poached into ruby globes of goodness. I couldn't use them all at the time, so froze the remainder and have just baked them with a brown sugar and hazelnut crumble on top. Fortunately the weather is still cool enough that a crumble is a welcome, rather than stodgy, dessert.

And there's been some time to pop out and try new places. When I lived in Brunswick as a student in the mid-90s, it was not the gentrified, trendy place that it is now. We tended to head to the city or Carlton to eat out but now East Brunswick is full of fabulous cafes and restaurants, all within walking distance of my old student houses. How I wish places such as Thaila Thai, Small Block, Gingerlee and Rumi's existed when I lived there! Although Brunswick is still an easy drive for me to get to, it's not the same as having the cafe around the corner from your house. My sister, her husband and I enjoyed the summer breakfast at Small Block last week: two triangles of thick bread topped with poached eggs and accompanied by beetroot relish, fat, creamy chunks of Persian fetta and a sweet avocado drizzled with lemon juice. It was a refreshing, summery start to the day, especially accompanied by good strong coffee.

A few days later, it was time to pay another visit to Noisette in Bay St, Port Melbourne, for a French-inspired breakfast of a creamy flat white and a crispy, flaky pain au chocolat that melted in my mouth. The plain and almond croissants were also tempting but the chocolate won in the end. This is another lovely little cafe that I wish was my local.

Not that I can complain about my local cafe, Nosh @ Newport, which has gone from strength to strength since it opened 18 months ago. It's filled a real niche in Newport. Once cafe-starved locals needed to travel to Yarraville or Seddon (I don't find much worth bothering with in Williamstown) for a coffee or cafe fix, but now we have Nosh within strolling distance. With books and toys, as well as a healthy children's menu, it's also popular with local families. The coffee, a Supreme blend, is always excellent. My favourite breakfast dish is the Turkish bread egg and bacon roll: two fried eggs, a mound of crispy bacon, aioli and melted cheese squashed into a fat toasted Turkish bread roll, accompanied with spicy relish. It always hits the spot!

Auction Rooms in North Melbourne is a relatively new cafe that's been receiving rave reviews for its excellent coffee and food. Situated on Errol St, you can sit in the front window, enjoying the morning sun and gazing through the enormous glass windows over towards the Town Hall. Inside is flooded with natural light and the tall ceilings and wide open spaces give an airy and warm feel to a space that doesn't feel overwhelming, despite its size. Coffee is freshly roasted each day, with details of the day's bean, its characteristics and the best way to enjoy it chalked up on a blackboard. I had a long black that was perfectly extracted. The coffee was smooth and sweet and there was no need to add sugar. Auction Rooms is also an outlet for Dench Bakers Bread, which features heavily on the menu, where dishes have cute names such as the Counter Bid and Opening Bid. I had the Real Deal, a dish of spicy baked beans with crispy grilled chorizo and cheesy polenta bread. It was a great late-morning breakfast and I can't wait to visit Auction Rooms again.

Nosh @ Newport

Slower to gentrify than neighbouring suburbs Seddon and Yarraville, Newport's culinary desert is starting to awaken. Situated in the eclectic Hall St shopping strip (an interesting mix of shops, including a grocery store, a wine shop, a tattooist, a lighting and design store, and offices for legal services and asphalt) Nosh @ Newport is the newest cafe in the area. Newport lacks the village atmosphere of Seddon or Yarraville but its three small main shopping strips (Mason Street, Hall Street and Melbourne Road) all have little banks of shops just crying out for development. There's a ready-made audience in the burgeoning local mothers' groups and Nosh has clearly done its research, as the kid-friendly touches include high chairs, books, crayons and paper, plus a a kid's menu featuring cheese toasties, vegemite toast and coco pops.

Situated on the site formerly occupied by the Pepper Tree Cafe on the corner of Hall Street and Tait Street, the interior has been gutted and redone in schmick cafe style. Sage-green wooden chairs and pale wood tables are offset by the beige, brown, cream and terracotta artworks on the walls, which are for sale. Window-seat diners perch on little mushroom-shaped stools and gaze out at the peppercorn tree-shaded train station opposite. Specials of the day are chalked up on a blackboard above a glass cabinet filled with cakes and topped with clear jars filled with biscuits. There's plenty of room for prams, and there are also outside tables where you can soak up the afternoon sun.

The menu is modest but ticks all the right boxes, with the standard favourites of a big breakfast plate, eggs of your choice, homemade bircher muesli and toasted vine bread balanced with more unusual offerings of orange and strawberry salad with muesli crumble or homemade bean bake with a cracked egg and cheese-melt French stick.

Lunch could feature long plump rice paper rolls filled with poached chicken, bean shoots, coriander and roasted peanuts, with an accompanying sauce of rice wine, palm sugar and sweet chilli vinegar. The warm roti wraps could be filled with chicken caesar salad, haloumi, spinach and avocado, or smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers and pistachio mayonnaise. Other choices include soup of the day, chef's salad, a thick, juicy steak sandwich, or plump sweet corn and potato fritters served with smoked salmon.

If you just feel like a snack, there are several cakes - perhaps a lemon tart, a carrot cake or a cheesecake - on offer, as well as excellent, smooth coffee. Open just a month, Nosh is already a hit with the locals, both those with and without prams.

Nosh @ Newport
24 Hall Street, Newport