Trade blooms for St Rose cafe in Essendon

St Rose Essendon
19 Rose Street Essendon. 9331 4488. strose.com.au
Mon-Fri 7am-4.30pm; weekends 8am-3pm

With a young family, husband and wife team Domenic and Diana Caruso, who used to run the successful Espresso 3121 in Cremorne, decided last year it was time to move their business closer to home – to Essendon, where they both grew up, and where, until recently, there's been a serious dearth of decent coffee and cafe fare.
"We didn't want to travel to Richmond every day and knew there was something missing around here in terms of good coffee," says Domenic. "There are lots of cafes around here, but not many that provide specialty coffee; you can't get a filter or single origins. I'm not sure why, as we're not that far out of the city."

And the locals were obviously crying out for some – since opening St Rose directly opposite Essendon station just seven months ago, the pair have found themselves so busy they're already trying to figure out how they can expand the seating in their stylishly fitted out space.

"We're flat out, which is great, but even during the week there's a waiting list! We thought we might be busy but we didn't expect it to happen this quickly. We're looking at maybe adding in a mezzanine level. We're a small space but luckily we've got the high ceilings."

Domenic says their all-day menu is "simple food made well" and features firm cafe favourites – St Rose's take on avo toast, served with herb-infused cherry tomatoes, Persian feta, micro-herbs and Murray River salt ($15) is the most popular morning option. This standard is closely followed in the popularity stakes by their satisfyingly meaty Brekkie Burger – it's huge and comes with a fried free-range egg, cheddar, spinach, bacon and hollandaise on a brioche bun and a hash brown on the side ($14). Other current wintry choices include baked chilli eggs with a spicy sauce, Persian feta and hazelnut dukkah ($16) and the St Rose – a house-made sausage pattie with bacon, poached free-range eggs, cherry tomatoes, herbed mushrooms, avo and spinach ($19.50).

The inner-city's grain of choice has also made it to Essendon – Domenic says their organic quinoa salad (with walnuts, Persian feta, cherry tomatoes and spinach leaves, $14.50) is another favourite with the locals.

St Rose tends to be packed at all hours, but it's breakfast that's the most hectic, with commuters grabbing a Veneziano coffee (including filter and single origins) en route to the station, and, being near a clutch of local high schools, there's also a pre-school bell rush.

"We get loads of school kids coming in," Domenic says. "Then we get the mums, then the lunch rush, then the afternoon rush when the kids finish school." Wait – school kids coming in for coffee?

"Oh yeah, it's huge," he says. "It's the in thing to be seen with a takeaway coffee cup."

After-school snacks have certainly changed over the years. St Rose might just be fostering coffee's next wave in the inner north-west.