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 This great value café is famed not just for its coffee, but for its generously-sized portions, writes Barry Lowe.
The neglected arse end (Zetland, Rosebery and Beaconsfield) of Clover Moore’s ill-named ‘City of Villages’ is a cuisinal wasteland. There’s the occasional middle-range restaurant (most better than good, thankfully) but the only upmarket joint that attempted to enliven Gadigal Avenue, Zetland, badly misjudged the population and its disposable income and even after re-branding and a change of menu, it folded to make way for a warren of developer’s offices. But most desperate of all is somewhere to have that gayest of all meals: Sunday brunch.
Johnny’s Café then is an oasis of unhurried serenity in the back streets of Rosebery where you can sit in the shop front on a cool day or on the sidewalk if you’re a smoker and watch the endless car parade pull up for the papers at the newsagent’s next door.
Variously described as retro (currently its walls are adorned with old LP record covers) or funky, its inviting décor is a kitsch mishmash of wood and vinyl as well as a wonderful array of suburban knick-knackery that wallow in ‘tasteless’ nostalgia –and here I’m thinking particularly of the wonderful array of salt and pepper shakers. But for all its oddball quality the word that springs uppermost to mind is mellow. The music is pitched mellow and the food likewise has that warm, inviting deep-throated quality.
For such a cosy café the menu is remarkably extensive and we decide to take our time over The Works ($15.80), a generous serve of fluffy scrambled egg – so light it almost melts in your mouth – garnished with mushrooms (the only lackluster item we found) and the superb lecsó, a Hungarian salsa, and the even more delicious sólet, the café’s legendary Hungarian-style home-made baked beans with barley. All with the lovely woody-smoked (mellow again) flavour of paprika. It comes with a generous and varied serve of toast: rye, sourdough and Turkish with a large wad of butter or, if you prefer, a no dairy substitute or mustard.
Until one of the group goes in search of bacon we have not noticed the café is vegetarian. The menu confirms it although it’s not trumpeted anywhere.
Also available is a hearty soup du jour (served in portions so large you could almost fill a swimming pool), various breads and dips, melts, vegeburgers and sandwiches. Al dente pasta, accompanied by the customary tomato based sauce through Genovese pesto sauce, mushroom, and my favourite, caramelised creamy pumpkin sauce with parmesan and pine nuts is available as well as pizza, just as varied and delicious with toppings including refried beans and guacamole, seasoned pumpkin, Danish blue cheese, down to mushroom and pineapple.
Johnny’s is justifiably famed for its coffee although its large array of teas from caffeinated to herbal is to be commended (leaf tea not bags). And if you’re into smoothies and fruit juices you can’t go past their Pineapple Mint Crush which explodes on the palate or the highly addictive Bananarumba (caffe espresso and whole banana super thick shake).
The portions are so large there’s almost no room for Johnny’s cheesecake, ‘the best and lightest this side of Budapest.’ They might just be right as the food leaves you floating on air.
Johnny's Cafe
66 Dalmeny Avenue
Rosebery
Tel: 9313 8929
Nick Dent is on leave
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