Some weekends you’re awake by 7.30 am, have had a run and a kale smoothie by 9 and you’re now ready for a productive day of adventuring. Other weekends, it’s a struggle to remember what happened the night before through the haze of the world’s best (or worst) hangover and you’re praying Deliveroo does McDonald’s delivery to your suburb. Everyday Espresso, Redfern’s newest cafe haunt embodies this duality of the average Sydneysider’s day to night lifestyle. While some cafes have taken the down and dirty road and others, the pathway to enlightenment with appropriately ‘light’ and healthy food, Tomislav Martinovic and Justin Stevenson pose the question, ‘Why can’t we have both?’
The Coops Benny ($14.90) is everything good and bad about Sydney’s current food scene. They’ve taken the pedestrian eggs benedict and swapped in a fancy Brasserie Bread croissant as the carb base and a yuzu hollandaise over regular hollandaise. Casually throw in some buttermilk fried chicken, streaky bacon and a fried egg and it definitely feels like Christmas has come early this year. It was hard to find fault with a dish that has so many feel good elements that somehow all seem to work. However, my first tip would be to inhale this dish first as having it sit around for too long risks crispy elements like the croissant and chicken getting soggy. My second tip is that if you plan on eating this on the regular, you’re here on this Earth for a good time, not a long time.
Everyone loves a good sanga on social media. I’ve seen the Mushroom Love ($13.90) do the rounds on Instagram in the last couple of weeks and being a truffle fiend, I had bookmarked it to remind myself to see what all the fuss was about. With elements like triple cheese, truffle paste, crème fraiche and buttered brioche, this is another dish that could potentially send you over the edge. Our heart and arteries were thankful that the serving was not too large. I personally felt like it could still do with more mushrooms and perhaps a larger variety of mushrooms. With these suggested tweaks, I think Everyday Espresso would then have a strong contender for one of the best sandwiches in CBD proximity as they already have the flavour right.
At this point we’re down two dirty dishes already so it made sense that our third and final order should be something that doesn’t send us into cardiac arrest. Here is where the Soba Omelette ($13.90) comes to be our saviour and to also remind us that if it’s green, it’s definitely healthy. As someone who is naturally more geared towards Asian flavours, the three egg omelette paired with fried shallots, nori and a soy dressing were right up my alley. However, I found it rather awkward to eat with the soba noodles as texturally, there wasn’t enough bite going on. I also have another similar gripe whereby the menu lists enoki mushrooms as one of the components but struggled to find very many strands of it in the bowl.
Coffee is by Pablo & Rusty. We ordered one cold drip and one iced long black. My dining partner gets a macchiato for the road just before we leave. It was all pleasant, with the former two chilled drinks hitting the spot on a hot summer Sunday . As someone who tends to err more on the activewear-awake-before-sunrise versus my friends who are creatures of the Sydney nightlife, Everyday Espresso seems to be the perfect place to compromise.
Everyday Espresso
Address: 159 Redfern St, Redfern NSW
Website: facebook.com/EverydayEspressoRedfern/
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