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Morsels from the editor's desk, November 21

Kirsten Lawson
Kirsten Lawson

Lonsdale Street Roasters doesn't just offer  excellent coffee, it also brings haphazard cafe street life to Canberra.
Lonsdale Street Roasters doesn't just offer excellent coffee, it also brings haphazard cafe street life to Canberra.Rohan Thomson

Incredibly, Canberra is developing an excellent cafe culture. Just as it seemed we would never have the local produce, the organics and the artisan producers of other cities, along came the Exhibition Park markets to galvanise all those entrepreneurial people with ideas into starting food businesses and selling their brilliant produce.

And just as it seemed we would never escape large, insipid lattes in bowl cups, along comes the Lonsdale Street Roasters at Braddon to bring not only excellent coffee, but haphazard cafe street life to the city.

Perhaps someone did it earlier and smaller (Tosolini's was virtually in the decent cafe stakes for some years), but these guys have led the charge, helping others set up shop and selling their coffee into other cafes.

Managing director  John  Fragopoulos  at  FishCo-Downunder  at  Belconnen Fresh Food Markets.
Managing director John Fragopoulos at FishCo-Downunder at Belconnen Fresh Food Markets.Richard Briggs
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Now you will find very cool cafes around the place, notably Mocan and Green Grout in the New Acton development, along with Brodburger (albeit more about burgers than coffee) and Gusto - not coffee at all, but pizza, yet still in this vein.

But the thing that's always seemed wondrous about many of these cafes is the obsession with bikes. They're on the walls as decoration, pulled up outside, and packed with cyclists in the morning. What is it with bikes and coffee shops? This is the subject of our cover story this week.

Owen Pidgeon has advice for looking after your fruit trees at this time of year (you need to thin, he says), and Karen Martini offers some great-sounding spicy pork ribs with chilli jam and summery slaw.

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Kirsten LawsonKirsten Lawson is news director at The Canberra Times

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