Pyrmont Restaurants: Breakfast At Cafe XXII

There are quite a few Pyrmont Restaurants around but it never seems to be enough. Pyrmont locals say there are not enough “good” restaurants.

You see, “good” is a highly subjective word. What is good anyway? Surely for one suburb, Pyrmont has its fair share of famous, even 3 hats fancy restaurants. That’s still not enough?

I figured over the years, that “good” means a restaurant offers food good for our eyes (remember our eyes eat first), good for our taste buds, and good for our wallet. And of course, good service.

Are many of restaurants offer all the above around town? Not that many. But they do, they’ll be rewarded by repeating customers and years of striving business.

I don’t know how old exactly is Cafe XXII but it grabbed my attention 8 years ago, when I first moved to Pyrmont. Why? Because every time I walked pass, it seemed to be packed. Especially in the morning, people were queuing up for their coffee. “They must have good coffee.” That was my first thought, then I noticed they had hunky waiters with broad smiles. That helped too, obviously.

I never bothered to join the queue to get a coffee because patience is not one of my virtues. But I managed to go there for brunches and breakfast, dragging my friends to go with me every time. It never disappointed, all my friends liked the food and coffee there. Then a few years later, something seemed different. The place was less packed. People started to mention that Cafe XII changed owners. It doesn’t really matter, or does it? I never know. Guess I’m not that regular enough to tell. I don’t really care who owns the restaurant anyway, as long as the quality is still the same. As someone who’s always hungry and keen to try different places,  I moved around to try different pyrmont restaurants over the years.

When Sylwia suggested to catch up  for breakfast in Pyrmont last Saturday, Cafe XXII came to my mind. Can’t remember how long ago exactly I was there last time. But last Saturday was a perfect day to go. For two reasons: 1. I trust its breakfast quality. 2. It was cloudy and supposed to rain.

You might ask, what’s the weather got to do with your restaurant choice? Let me tell you why.

It goes back to the history of Pyrmont as a suburb. It short, Pyrmont used to be a slump. Yeah. The suburb is packed with dark little houses with tiny rooms and low ceilings catered to laborers who worked in the Sydney CBD. But don’t start to disdain those old little houses in Pyrmont now. Those ones with only 2 tiny rooms renovated inside, no parking will cost you close to 2 million dollars now. Long story short, Cafe XXII is located in one of those dark little sandstone houses and mainly facing South. In Australia, it means, there will never be any sun light in any of the rooms. Don’t get me wrong, I like the interior of XXII. It’s so charming with all rooms connected to each other, exposed brick walls and clever large open windows. But I like the sun more, so on a sunny weekend morning, my choice will be Zebra Lounge with beautiful water views.

But Cafe XXII, on the other hand, is perfect for a not so sunny day. It’s cozy + warm inside and you can hear the rain drops on its tin roof when it’s raining. The sound I kind of enjoy.

So there we went, being the first customers at 8am on a not so warm Saturday morning. What did we have? Coffee first, of course.

I ordered the Florentine: poached eggs, toasted muffin, smoked salmon, spinach & hollandaise. Here’s a snap:

Sylwia ordered the Breakfast Stack: two free range poached eggs on sour dough, oven roasted tomato, haloumi, fresh avocado, rocket, basil pesto & aioli. Here’s another quick snap to give you an idea what it looked like: the plate on top. They tasted just as good as they looked.

By the time our breakfast was ready, people and occasional dogs started to fill up the space slowly. As we sat there, enjoying our breakfast, it started to rain lightly outside, just as expected:).