The Grounds of Alexandria

Imagine your ultimate cafe and square it. There's a good chance it'd turn out like The Grounds. Hipsters love the roasted on-site coffee (and the passing cycleway). Mums' groups make the most of ample pram parking. Families come for the vegie patch complete with chooks, and local workers and residents still can't believe their luck - that a chic warehouse space with sprawling outdoor areas has landed in a still-industrial corner of Alexandria. The menu, too, reflects the modern cafe zeitgeist. Breakfast ranges from house-made granola to braised ham hock with crushed peas on charred bread. Fittingly for a venue sprouting herbs and leafy greens from every available niche, salads are the go at lunch - pan-fried ocean trout on a combo of quinoa and edamame with gazpacho vinaigrette, or a juicy peach and buffalo mozzarella version tempered by bitter witlof. Desserts lack the spontaneity of the savoury offerings, but a slab of cherry danish does the trick, with coffee in a signature sage-green cup.