It’s OK North Fitzroy, you’re not crazy. Organic-veg-shop-cum-café the Green Grocer is no more. It’s now a Viennese café and cake bar, which means cabinets packed with flaky pastry strudels, weisswurst (pork and veal snags) aplenty and plum knödel for breakfast. Knodel, if you're not familiar, are cakey steamed potato dumplings. Here they come with a sharp plum centre, a fragrant lavender crumble and a dollop of sweetened cream – it’s a warm, carby win for breakfast dessert fiends.
It’s funny, actually. Melbourne expats living in Berlin can’t shut up about the lack of good breakfast, but the frühstück here is one of the best fast-breakers you’ll find in the city. For $16, you receive a bonanza of thick-cut ham, salami, and fruity slices of Swiss cheese, with a nutty bowl of bircher muesli packing sharp poached rhubarb, and a squidgy boiled egg, balancing on a cute-as-a-button origami eggcup. In place of bread you get a big chewy pretzel, with big salt jewels clinging to a tacky golden coat.
We love a good breakfast of bits, so while we’d definitely take another run at a flat white, we're coming back for the sampler of Turkish coffee delivered with a cube of Turkish delight and a fizzy soda refresher.
We’re sad to see the Grocer go, but when the silver lining is pretzel shaped, we’ll recover.