Plenty

When Jason Chan moved to Melbourne from New Zealand 11 years ago, the cafe landscape was vastly different to today's. He opened Batch in Balaclava when there were just a handful of cafes in the area and now, a decade on, his 10-month-old Chapel Street venture, Plenty, is one of dozens in the area.

"We're not that far away from Batch but now there are so many cafes between here and there," he says. "When we started there were probably three or four. But it's a good thing."

Batch, which Chan opened with his sister Marie, became something of a Kiwi haven, with the interior wall crammed with Kiwi paraphernalia and lollies from the homeland. Plenty, Chan, says, is a "grown-up" version of his much-loved first cafe.

According to Chan, the breakfast and lunch menus, created by Plenty head chef Darren Daley, formerly of The Living Room in Malvern, are more changeable.

"At Batch we don't have many new dishes - it's like the greatest hits, but here we chop and change as we go. We get a lot of our Batch regulars coming here because the menu is often different each time."

The Plenty breakfast menu may change seasonally, but favourites like the fluffy ricotta pancakes with maple syrup and pistachio butter ($13), the oats rolled to order with fruit and yoghurt ($10) and the omelette with cavolo nero, buffalino and soft herbs ($15) are mainstays. Other much-loved dishes pop up now and then like the crazy-rich truffle, prosciutto sandwich ($14) and the ham hock with pearl barley hash, kaiserfleisch and fried egg ($16), one of Plenty's most popular brekkies.

"The ham hock is pretty full on," says Chan. "Darren's really from a fine dining background so here he's tried to use that but make more accessible dishes, taming things down to a more relaxed feel."

And part of Plenty's ethos is to source as many local ingredients as they can.

"Batch has always been Kiwi but here we want to showcase things we can make ourselves, more Australian stuff," says Chan. "We're embracing those principles more and want to show what you can do with a small space."

The small space he refers to is the cafe's back courtyard, lined with vertical herb and edible flower gardens designed by sustainability specialist Joost Bakker (with whom Chan worked at Greenhouse)  who also has plans  for a racking-style herb garden for the cafe's rooftop.

"We're really about making as much as we can here. We smoke our own meats - brisket and bacon and salmon - and make our own lemonade and sodas."

Chan is also one of the creators of the small-batch West Winds Gin, so as well as house-made sodas like his own tonic and ginger beer, cocktails incorporating these and other house-made mixers are a specialty. The Plenty bloody Mary is already something of a local legend, particularly the recent incarnation that incorporated pork floss.

"It's something we might do again, but in a different way - we had some vegetarian customers freak out about it," Chan says. "Then there's our gin-based version, called a Red Snapper, made with bush tomato and coriander, and our own spice mix ($11), which we put smoked chipotles through. It's pretty good."

Chan has plans to open a bar above the cafe eventually - until then, you're just going to have to force yourself to order one of these amazing concoctions with your brekkie or lunch.