A beautiful warm Saturday over Easter provided another great opportunity to do an Eat Streets post. This time, we headed towards the South Melbourne market, a foodie destination in its own right, and explored Coventry Street which forms its southern perimeter.
This is by no means as expansive a strip as our previous Eat Streets post on Gertrude Street. While there are some foodie stops in some side laneways, the main foodie precinct here is a small block, just up from the market bounded by Clarendon and Cecil Streets (with a couple of places a little further afield). It’s an easy walk (around 15 minutes) from the city, or you can jump on a tram. If you’re going to spend a while in the area, Greedy Girl recommends you don’t drive. Who needs to worry about getting a parking fine when you can relax, sip on some excellent coffee and soak up the sun?
Given most of the food establishments face north, it’s a particularly lovely spot when the sun is shining – there’s a lot of al fresco options and many cafés have large window frontages, also a good spot for pulling up a chair, or a stool, and watching the passing parade.
Greedy Girl and gluttonous husband decided to start with an old favourite – Café Sweethearts. This has been a part of Coventry Street for as long as Greedy Girl can remember – and provided her introduction to the absolutely scrumptious eggs benedict. Just beaten to a table in the sun, we opted to sit inside where the blonde timber floors and bentwood chairs are still a fixture. This is a particularly popular spot for families, so if you have an aversion to strollers or are looking for a quiet spot to sit, read or chat, you’ve probably picked the wrong place. Greedy Girl was keen to discover if the eggs benedict were still as good – two perfectly poached eggs sitting atop a light and crunchy English muffin, with grilled ham and liberal splashings of hollandaise sauce. We washed it down with a freshly squeezed orange juice and an espresso.
A triumphant eggs benedict
On our way out, we chatted to the owner who said he took over five years ago – with the previous crew there for around the previous 23 years. It may not look quite as glamorous as Greedy Girl remembers in her formative dining years but it was certainly still very good food.
We moved on to another old favourite, back in the days when we were seeking out some decent coffee. Caffe Panette is directly across the road from the market, on a busy corner allotment. Some years back it attracted the ire of young families after banning prams on busy weekends. The weekends remain busy, although we were easily able to get a table inside for a couple of good coffees.
Piccolo and espresso
Having allowed the richness of the eggs to subside, we moved back down the street to the Middle Eastern-inspired GAS Eatery. Again, this has been a fixture on the strip for a number of years, with a large menu of breakfast staples as well as some interesting dishes of the day in the big display case. Opting for two such specials (it was nearly lunchtime by this point), we look a Lamb Gozleme and a beef empanada.
Lamb gozleme
Beef empanada
The lamb is a Turkish dish and had a lovely, light spiciness. The dish was combined with coriander, hummus, pine nuts and drizzled with harissa oil. It had a great range of flavours and the turkish bread it sat on stayed reasonably crispy. Delish. The empanada was soft and also very tasty and worked well with the yoghurt dressing. They were two excellent light dishes that brought the taste buds alive but didn’t fill us up.
It was time for something a little sweet – the amazing banana and chocolate bread featured at the top of this post. This was at Giddiup – an espresso bar tucked into the side of a little homewares store. There are very few spaces inside but the pavement was full of tables and milk crate chairs. We sat up at a high bench inside overlooking a laneway. The bread (not a great choice for anyone on a diet) was absolutely delicious – buttery, not overly sweet and the addition of the dark chocolate chips was inspired. Greedy Girl almost grudgingly cut the slice in half and provided gluttonous husband with his share, washed down with an excellent long macchiato.
Fortified, we decided to have a little wander. There are some great stalls in the market, especially for fruits and vegetables, a sourdough bakery and a very decent fishmonger. We checked out a few clothing stores, but not finding much that took our fancy, decided to walk out a bit further and ended up at O’Connell’s Hotel, on the corner of Coventry and Montague. This was possibly one of Melbourne’s earlier gastropubs, and while we just partook of a cleansing Stone & Wood Cloud Catcher pale ale, the standard of food brought out to neighboring tables looked exceptionally good, especially the homemade pies. Greedy Girl made a note to head back on a coolish night to partake.
We were almost over and out, but decided to give one more venue a try – Big Huey’s Diner. This is the latest venture by New Zealand-born TV chef Iain Hewitson, who has been a regular on the Melbourne food scene for a great many years. Initially we sat inside. The decor is not quite as over the top as some other US-themed diners; there are a few booths (as you’d expect) and one end of the room is dominated by a rather large jukebox. While the tunes were pumping, sadly the quality of the speakers wasn’t great. We decided to head to a long bench table out the front to take in the last of the afternoon sun.
The diner offers what it terms ‘Huey’s Halfies’ – half hamburgers. Greedy Girl went traditional with a cheese and bacon burger. It was a very delectable beef patty topped with lashings of cheese, some crisp bacon, aioli, tomato chutney and some cucumber pickles. Dare it be said – the pickles gave the burger an extra flavour dimension. Delish. Gluttonous husband was easily talked into the ‘Peacemaker’. This apparently is a New Orleans-style burger made from fried oysters, spicy coleslaw, pickles and a Cajun remoulade. Gluttonous husband was utterly delighted.
No meat, just oysters in this burger
All that was left to be done was a short walk home in the lowering sun. It was, relatively speaking, a fairly short stint but we certainly packed some inventive and tasty food in.
Where we visited:
Café Sweethearts, 263 Coventry
Caffé Panette, corner Coventry and Cecil
GAS Eatery, 253 Coventry
Giddiup, 269 Coventry
Big Huey’s Diner, 315 Coventry
O’Connells Hotel, corner Coventry and Montague
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