It seems that in the past six months or so amazing cafe ventures have been popping up all over the south side of the river like wildfire. Along with Outpost (which I really need to get around to reviewing properly one of these days), one of my favourites is NorthSouth Eatery, which is a leisurely stroll from my workplace and provides a green refuge from the hustling bustle of Chapel Street.
When I say green refuge, I mean GREEN! Quite aside from all the lovely fresh flowers that peep out of vases everywhere, the interior is painted in this really quite gorgeous dark green colour that for some reason I find really calming. It’s a really enjoyable space to sit in with a book, and just relax, perhaps in a spot that lets you see into the open kitchen so you can watch your brunch getting made.
And I’ve experienced quite a few NorthSouth Brunches by now! The very first was in the fine company of Schaefer and Miss Brinkman on a sleepy Sunday morning. Clearly we were all in need of savoury kick-starts that morning in light of our choices!
After much deliberation, I decided to sample the avocado on toast with black pepper. It was comprised of nice thick seedy bread, bright green avocado, and gorgeous tomato slices drizzled with a little olive oil. Adding some Maldon salt from the bowl on the table made it pretty much the prettiest and tastiest breakfast around.
Miss Brinkman went with the leek and zucchini omelette. In her words, it was perfectly cooked, not rubbery or runny, a perfect consistency all the way through. The zucchini was by all accounts AMAZING, and the leek topped it all off into an eggy, savoury delight. I wanted to try a bite, but Miss Brinkman wasn’t letting anyone else touch it!
Schaefer chose the scrambled eggs with bacon on toast. “Tasty,” in Schaef’s brief words. Though he did think that the toast was a bit comically thick (it was at least 3 inches thick, it was a bit absurd).
I did manage to sample something more sweet on my most recent visit: the homemade crumpets with butter and honey. These were just divine, two big crispy crumpets served with honey, a lemon wedge and a perfectly round disc of butter. You can view their beautiosity for yourself, in this awesome photo taken by Miss Brinkman that you can find on her Tumblr, right here (you can also see her muesli, our tea and espresso, and my fingertips eagerly anticipating crumpety goodness).
So there you go, one of my south side brunching favourites. Pop on in next time you’re over the river, get a crumpet, and then have fun watching all the cute dogs trotting past on their daily constitutionals.
NorthSouth Eatery
760 Chapel Street, South Yarra
Ph: 9872 6221
Edit 9/7/2011: After some ownership wranglings, it appears that NorthSouth has had a name change. It is now covered in big red signs that proclaim “BK’s on Chapel” (which has honestly got to be the worst name change in the history of ever, I mean dear lord). It is yet to be ascertained whether they are still running with the same menu.