There is a certain lo-fi charm to a café with milk crate tables, or wobbly dwarf stools, or a canteen-style queue to fill your brekky tray. But sometimes we just want a café that is user friendly. A café that has budgeted for chairs, floor staff and the small fixtures that make your day just a little bit easier.
'Something for everybody' is a term we shy away from here at Time Out, but we are all for inclusiveness, and here is where Copo shines. Finding a place that is accessible, has easy parking, no queues, Wi-Fi, is kid-friendly and kind to our gluten-free friends can be a tall order, but Copo made their list, and sure as hell checked it twice.
This two-storey café is listed on Victoria Road, Drummoyne but you want to head around the back to Formosa Street where the entrance runs right off a handy council parking lot. When the weather is fine make a beeline for the stairs and head up into the open air of the sunny covered terrace. If accessibility is a priority the lower floor is flat as a tack.
The better part of a whole smoked trout pokes up through a dish of baked eggs like brilliant pink icebergs in a breakfast sea. It’s the most deliciously oily, smoky fish you’ll find outside of a Canadian tourism ad. Bound together with three eggs and topped with a melty dollop of crème fraîche and a generous handful of parsley, dill and thyme, this is a seriously rich breakfast. Order it when you have finished the bay run, or if you’re planning an unseasonal period of hibernation.
If simplicity is your catch-cry, go for the tender piece of steak on an open sourdough sandwich with gently pickled red onion fronds, tomato relish and rocket. But it’s not nearly as fun-sounding as the bubble and squeak with fried egg, speck, cabbage, peas and potato.
When it comes to tall, frosty beverages, they do it all. If you're pro-lactose, dose yourself with an iced coffee, milkshake or thickshake, or go dairy free with a frappe or fresh juice. If it’s a serious hangover we are firm believers in multi-beverage cures: go for three-courses of liquid nutrients including a cheeky beer, which they’ll crack for you after 11.30am.
The coffee is from Newtown roasting royalty Campos, and they do decaf that won’t make you pull a sad panda face at the memory of long lost caffeine. Even better – they do cold-drip coffee over ice cream. Come at me, summer.
