The Book Kitchen

By Franz Scheurer

A warehouse-like space turned into a café by someone with an eye for design and practicality. High, black corrugated ceilings contrast with the avocado green back wall and the dark wood that is seemingly everywhere. A solid L-shaped communal table with squat little wooden stools sits in front of a large bookshelf full of culinary books. This is a hungry, gastronomic bookworm’s idea of heaven! They have a great selection of food and wine books for sale and are happy to do a worldwide book search for you. If you don’t like sitting on a communal table, you have a choice of one of the many small tables inside or on the footpath. Something for everyone.

They’re open for breakfast and lunch and will soon open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays for dinner. The menu might be simple, but the food is simply terrific. A dish of ‘Fresh figs, mascarpone, balsamic reduction and crispy speck’, ($12) is pretty as a picture, the figs ripe and oozing with melted mascarpone and the speck crisp and divine. A ‘Blue swimmer crab cake, tomato, avocado, salsa verde’, ($16) is a soft centred crispy, crabby delight and the salad served as a garnish is perfectly picked over and well seasoned. My favourite dish was the ‘Warm kipfler potato, lamb shank and herb salad with mustard seed dressing’, ($12) an unctuous, ripper of a salad served at room temperature. Servings are generous and the staff is quick, friendly and cheerful.

If the food is terrific, then the coffee is divine. To make sure it was not a fluke, we ordered coffee repeatedly until we were certain: in my opinion they serve the best short black in town! Using ‘Single Origin’ coffee (who prepare a special blend for The Book Kitchen), the girls really know how to get the best out of coffee and machine.

This is a delightful place to spend some quality time, eating, drinking and reading. They are licensed but still welcome BYO and corkage is $4 per bottle.

Score: 6.5/10

For more information:

The Book Kitchen

255 Devonshire Street (near Bourke St)

Surry Hills NSW 2010

Tel.: 02 9310 1003