dear melbourne: (golly gosh!) a guest!

Twenty & Six Espresso

I am writing this on the eve of Daylight Saving ending, so am mindful that by this time tomorrow what’s left of the long Summer evenings will be gone. Soon the air will become crisp, the leaves will turn golden and out will come the socks, the crochet blankets, the casserole dishes and the red wine…

When Jessie asked me to ‘guest’ on She’s Leaving Home, she mentioned that with cooler weather approaching, featuring an all-day breakfast place or “somewhere to warm one’s tummy” might be appealing to her readers. Nice idea, I thought. What nicer thing to do when the weather turns cool than to meet up with friends for a hearty breakfast? I knew just the place… So come Saturday morning, I pedalled over to Twenty & Six Espresso in North Melbourne to meet my friends for breakfast. 

Twenty & Six is the brain-child of design-duo-turned-café-owners, Ned Rahmanovic and Majda Falon. The interior space is light and bright, and speckled with quirky design features like suspended light globes, whimsical little wall sketches, and wooden milk-crates. We sat at the communal table and ordered a round of coffee (blends courtesy of Proud Mary and Seven Seeds) and poured over the menu. I love how dishes here are named like they’d fuel you with super-human powers for the rest of the day. We were all very tempted by “The Hulk” (smashed avocado with lemon, chilli, mint, fetta and house-cured salmon gravalax), but in the end, the two ladies of the breakfasting party went with “The Traveller” (Baked eggs with lamb kofta and coriander salsa in a spiced tomato sauce), and the man just couldn’t go past “The Hunter” (Balsamic roasted Portobello mushrooms with spiced chorizo, crème fraiche and truffle oil). (With a name like that, I am pretty certain most men can’t!). Our baked eggs came in a skittle, hot from the oven and accompanied by two cigars of flat-bread and some hummus on the side. It was a fantastic combination – subtly sweet and salty (but not too much so) and deliciously flavoursome. The mushrooms and chorizo looked equally spectacular, and serendipitously the guy across the table from us was enjoying a sky-high pile of smashed avocado.

(Wow!)(Next time…).

 Tummy warmers? You bet! Super-human powers? Check! All day breakfast? Well, I forgot to ask… but if not needing to eat for the rest of the day counts, then yes!

Twenty & Six Espresso

(03) 9329 0298

594 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne 3052