Code Black

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15-17 Weston Street, Brunswick, 9381 2330

My score: 4/5

I’m eating duck waffles for brunch and I’m thwacked over the scone by a thought: geez, Melbourne is good. I’m in a well-loved four-year-old Brunswick cafe and the food is so plainly at the standard of a very good restaurant that I blink a few times, take a bite break, and look around.

Code Black is a 110-seat warehouse cafe, sleek and shimmery and so seriously black that if you wear dark tones, you’ll appear as a floating head. There’s a dog-friendly front terrace, a glass box of a kitchen and roastery areas where green beans are turned into Melbourne fuel. A popular place but not super hip or queue-ridden, Code Black is just one of a number of excellent Melbourne cafes that turn breakfast and lunch from perfunctory fuel into peak experiences. We are lucky.

So to those waffles. They’re prepared by Ross Bennie, a Scottish chef trained in classical French cookery in the United Kingdom, including a good stint with the upmarket Conran group. It shows: his food is technically sound and presented with confident flair. The duck leg is cured overnight in salt, sugar and garlic then cooked low and slow until the meat can be easily torn from the bone. That melty leg with its shiny, scraped-clean tibia sits on a savoury waffle that’s properly crunchy and fluffy. Made with potato, buttermilk and gluten-free flour, it’s flecked with spring onions for extra texture. A fried egg lolls on top, and there’s a jug of smoky, spicy chilli-infused maple syrup to bring it back to brunch. There’s no hiding the rock-solid skills at play.

Bennie was sous chef at Richmond’s Noir then, when late nights started to pall, decamped to daylit dining at nearby Top Paddock. Many old-school chefs lament the lifestyle aspirations of a new generation but one upside is that skilled chefs find their ways to cafes where they keep flexing their highly-trained muscles. It’s a win for the brunch crowd.

At Top Paddock, Bennie learnt that every Melbourne cafe menu must star avocado, and that eggs and extras are compulsory because many people wake up with a fixed vision of breakfast. Those staples are covered off nicely as well as chia-laced fritters, delicious cheesy, herby beans, and lovely lunch-skewed dishes like a fish burger on dramatic black brioche, a crumbed chicken cotoletta that’s lightened and brightened with coriander pesto and apple matchsticks, a Mexican vegetable bowl that’s built over cashew ‘cheese’ and a grilled pineapple salad with toasted coconut and plenty of fresh herby crunch and spice. Kids meals extend the concept – why wouldn’t a Brunswick bairn want chia pudding? Vegan and vegetarian options are threaded through the menu without any sort of categoric exile.

Add great coffee, ace smoothies (cherry and beetroot!), good service and a menu laced with cheeky humour and you’ve got a cafe that speaks to the happy state of Melbourne dining and does it more than proud.

See their website.

More Daylit Dining:

Higher Ground, 650 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, 8899 6219.
Come for the dramatic space and dishes that wow, first for their prettiness and then for their deft flavours. Yes, do come – just perhaps not at 10am on the weekend.

My Son, Joy, 315 Coventry Street, South Melbourrne, 9690 2221.
New in South Melbourne, with a focus on low-carbohydrate, high-fat, allergy-conscious food, chef Neale White (Papa Goose) makes sourdough, cures egg yolks and ferments daikon for wholesome breakfast and lunch dishes.

Mr and Mrs Anderson, 398 Tooronga Road, Hawthorn East, 9882 9888.
An ex-fine dining chef and direct supply from a Gippsland farm mean this bright corner cafe’s food is a hefty cut above the standard. Try the white chocolate brioche.

Wilson & Market, 163-185 Commercial Road, South Yarra, 9804 7530.
Chef Paul Wilson – and Prahran Market shoppers – have been waiting a long time for this dining destination to be built and it’s finally (partly) open. Come now for upscale brunches, stay tuned for the glitzy Luxe brasserie’s opening mid-month.

First published in The Age, 7th May 2017.