The Incinerator

"They're not going to burn everything, are they?" Ha ha. "Do you think they smoke their own salmon?" Boom tish. Hopefully, that's the end of the incinerator jokes as we pull up outside the Incinerator cafe in leafy Willoughby.

But even my witty friend is silenced by the grim beauty of the art deco incinerator, one of 12 designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Eric Milton Nicholls in the 1930s for the Reverbatory Incinerator and Engineering Company. It perches like a brooding Xanadu in concrete and sandstone above Bicentennial Reserve, no longer spitting out smoke and ashes, but French toast with caramelised banana and coconut yoghurt instead.

Market umbrellas and French wire chairs gather outside under the gum trees, the very picture of Lower North Shore civilisation. Inside, the building's innate symmetry is highlighted by the kitchen running down one side, tables down the other, and broad doors flung open to lawns at either end. It's like sitting in an Amish barn, albeit one with cheeky glasses of bubbly on the table.

Owner Jonathan Slingo has installed a handsome, white-tiled, wood-fired oven and chef Adrian Borg, both of whom turn out a clever menu of effortlessly attractive breakfasts and lunches. Rammed on weekends for bacon and egg rolls ($12) and chocolate Tim Tam shakes ($7), it's more civilised at lunch, when kids run around the lawn, mums and dads catch up with each other over bowls of hand-cut chips with rosemary salt ($8), and silver foxes sip Tea Craft tea. "This place is hot," says the punster. Groan.

Prices might be on the pointy end for a cafe, but there's a restaurant's sense of detail. A smoked salmon ''sandwich'' ($15) is do-it-yourself, with silky swathes of pickled cucumber, a bowlful of flaked, hot-smoked fish and horseradish yoghurt to pile onto good bread. Hearty salads are rife with leaves, vegetables and seeds, and a wood-roast chicken and quinoa salad ($22) with smoked yoghurt is a winner. Charred squid is the only boring element of a salad of fennel, chilli, herbs and romesco sauce ($19.50), being too cold for comfort.

The Incinerator is a good coffee stop in its own right, with a piccolo caffe latte from the Grounds Roasters as darkly chocolatey as a block of Lindt 70 per cent. And as my friend insists on pointing out, the tangy little lemon meringue tarts ($6) are perfectly, appropriately, scorched on top. Ho ho.

THE LOW-DOWN
Do … snaffle an outside table on a good day.
Don't … forget to admire the chimney.
Dish … wood-roast chicken and quinoa salad with smoked yoghurt.
Vibe … wood-fired cafe meets Amish barn.