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Miss Marmalade

Nina Rousseau

Cafe

IS BRUNSWICK single-handedly leading Australia’s baby boom? Because if suburbs received a kid-friendly certification like the Heart Foundation’s tick, Brunswick would gain immediate accreditation, along with an elephant stamp and 30 gold stars. Per capita, there must be more state-of-the-art bubba buggies in this inner-city suburb than anywhere else in Melbourne.

As we all know, new mums ‘‘do coffee’’ like Matt Preston ‘‘does cravats’’ and they’ll pound the footpaths in search of that special, welcoming cafe where they can hoik their boobs out, change a nappy and not feel like a leper if their precious sweetheart bawls blue murder.

Enter Miss Marmalade, a backstreet cafe (in the old Sarkies with Love building) with cool toys in the big back room (cushions, crayons, blocks and a chalkboard), a cosy front room with exposed brick walls and recycled timber, friendly staff who don’t flinch in the face of children, and spacious loos with a change table stocked with nappies and wipes. Little wonder Miss M is a hit with the maternal fraternity.

The day I visited — a Wednesday — a mothers’ group was out the back; a fleet of pushers lined up nose-to-tail down the hallway. Nearly every other customer had a small child in tow, including the owners, Tony and Robyn Enlund. In fact, Miss Marmalade was named after their daughter Phoebe’s marmalade-coloured hair.

If you don’t have a kid, bring your dog — they’re welcomed out the front with a refreshing bowl of water.

I must come clean: I am new to motherhood (don’t worry, this column won’t descend into the babycino abyss) and have previously avoided kid-friendly cafes like I have thus far avoided nits.

But now, here I am, ‘‘doing coffee’’. Gosh, it’s a good cup, too: a full-bodied Five Senses Brazilian blend beautifully made with a leafy pattern etched into the crema. Scrummy house-made cakes go very well with said coffee, such as the dense, flourless chocolate with a thick layer of chocolate ganache or the deliciously lemony rhubarb cake.

The interesting breakfast menu runs all day, so at 3pm, it’s perfectly acceptable to munch into a pancake-shaped corn fritter with a decent smear of earthy Woodside goat’s curd, field mushrooms and a poached egg that’s been crumbed and deep-fried. It’s a tasty dish, so tasty that more of it wouldn’t go astray.

Other brekkies include a bean mix (the kidney beans a touch undercooked) on soft, cakey corn bread made with pumpkin and polenta. Or you can go sweet with a two-stack of thick ricotta hotcakes with stewed apples, hazelnuts and honey labneh — also a good dish, although the hotcakes could be fluffier.

Lunch might be a piadina cut into three triangles with chunks of soft pumpkin, onion jam, lemon ricotta and well-roasted tomato.

A boon is that Miss Marmalade is an early opener and — a big winner — it’s open seven days, so you don’t have to wait out that barren Monday when plenty of places take the day off.

I always thought the baby bonus was spent on flatscreen TVs. It’s not; in Brunswick it’s spent on lattes.

SOURCE: Epicure

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