Morning glory

We all love a serving of zhee cheong fun and mee pok for breakfast – just not every morning, and especially not on the weekend. So what do you do if you’ve been hankering for a Western-style breakfast – like a half-decent fry-up, or even a healthy yoghurt parfait? We road tested a few joints around town and came up with these choice spots (opening hours listed are for the breakfast service only). 

Cedele by Bakery Depot
Unexpectedly, Cedele served up an excellent breakfast. Unexpected because we still tend to think of it as a cake joint. But the servings are quite large and at $11.50, it’s hard to complain about the Hot Breakfast of eggs, toast and a choice of bacon, mushrooms and sausages. Most of the options offer variations of the same combination, with extras costing, well, extra – we paid $1 for one teensy-weensy bacon strip. The rosti comprises two small tiles of potato wedges, but the side servings of eggs and mushrooms turn it into a hefty meal ($12.90). But what really bowled us over were the airy apple cinnamon pancakes (with actual sautéed apples embedded in the batter), served with bacon or sausages, wild blueberries and vanilla butter ($10.90). Service is still rather lacklustre: the wait-staff tend to congregate at the kitchen counter, either not seeing our frantically waving hands, or with their backs to the room. But for a breakfast spread this satisfying, we’ll also turn a blind eye.

Colbar Cafe
Who serves up prawn cocktails these days, let alone T-bone steak, chips and peas? Well, Colbar does, and loyal fans love them for it. The place, looking for all the world like a glorified tin shed, is locked in a time warp (circa 1956), and that’s just fine with us. The cooking isn’t great – on a recent visit, the poached eggs ($5.50) were the texture of cotton wool, and the sausages ($9) a touch mealy, accompanied by wooden chips – but it’s all cheap and good, and just what the doctor ordered after a hard night’s partying. At our breakfast, the next table cracked open a bottle of beer to go with their omelette – it’s that kind of place. Word to the wise: there’s no air-conditioning, just lazy ceiling fans, so be prepared to shvitz a little when it’s warm outside.

Epicurious 
This old stand-by combines homey, comfort breakfasts with a rather charming setting by the river. The weekday offerings are limited to eggs and sides that include brie, smoked salmon and spinach. But it’s the weekend brekkie that really shines. Don’t miss the burrito ($12) – rolled-up scrambled eggs, cheese and an earthy, spicy chorizo – and a tall glass of home-made granola streaked with honey yoghurt and fruit ($6). Baked eggs ($12) are cloaked in a blanket of melted cheddar, its steaming depths revealing crunchy croutons, bits of tomato and a choice of shrimp, mushroom or ham (we recommend ham) – all mopped up with crisp soldiers. For something lighter, the French toast ($6.50) is made with raisin-walnut bread and paired with a tart marmalade butter. 

Graze  
There’s such a charming Sydney vibe about Graze. Its bucolic location in a black-and-white bungalow in Rochester Park is a plus, as is the vastly improved service. The breakfast menu is wideranging, from eggs done to your liking and muesli to freshly squeezed fruit juices and inch-thick toast. But the star attraction is the fry-up ($18), here served in a castiron pan crowded with fat bratwurst, sautéed mushrooms, sunny-side-up eggs, baked beans and nicely oily bacon. Thoughtfully, a vegetarian version is also available. The few low notes were banana pancakes overwhelmed by the red currant sauce ($13), expensive mojitos ($18) that needed a lot more alcohol and none-too-clean men’s toilets. 

Insomnia 
You’ve gotta love a place that’s still serving breakfast at three in the morning. The quality of the ingredients don’t stand up so well when compared to the other places in this round-up, but we figure that if you’re ordering a fry-up at this hour, you’re not going to be too fussed. Note-worthy offerings include grilled cheese on toast ($6), tomato-cheese omelette ($7) and bacon-and-egg sandwiches ($7). Fans, however, swear by the All Day Breakfast – a plate of eggs any way you like ’em, small pork sausages (our serving was mealy and bland), grilled tomato, waves of bacon, thick-cut chips, baked beans, a stack of toast, coffee or tea, and mushrooms sautéed, oddly, with curry sauce (all for a soberingly cheap $16). 

New York New York 
There’s something so casually chirpy, upbeat and authentic about New York New York (so authentic, in fact, they named it twice and plonked down a pool table in the middle of the restaurant) that you understand why the lunch and dinner queues are so long. The all-day breakfast is great value and very well executed. Highlights include the yummy cheese-steak muffin (layers of beef stacked on crisp muffins and smothered with salty processed cheese with a side of crunchy chips, $6.90), pancakes (a not-so-filling serving of two small, fluffy rounds with butter and maple syrup, $5.90), and corned beef hash ($7.90) – from a tin, the helpful staff advised us – served with sautéed onions and a sunny-side-up egg. 

Wine Garage  
Full marks to Wine Garage for putting on one of the few organic and planet-friendly weekend breakfasts in town. Of course, this means the prices are a little heftier (including a $19 fruit platter with rosemary- infused honey and yoghurt), but the quality of the ingredients is beyond reproach. Plus, there’s no price tag on how virtuous you’ll feel as you savour poached organic eggs ($20.90), swirled through with torn chunks of fennel sausages and wilted spinach. Especially good are the buttermilk pancakes ($19.80) topped with blueberry compote and tart kumquat butter, and the poached egg over polenta ($19). The kids have their own special menu, including egg with hash browns ($8) and French toast with mango ($9).