Poh Ling Yeow opens Jamface in Adelaide

• Peek inside Poh's home kitchen

Poh Ling Yeow​ has opened a permanent location for her Jamface business at Adelaide Central Market.

The cookbook author, television host and former MasterChef contestant is running a cafe at stall 28-29, with a menu that skips through many international borders. There's Scandinavian smoked salmon and potato salad, red-wine poached eggs with garlic croutons (a recipe via the French family of business partner and best friend Sarah Rich) and a Southern-style carrot cake, which is drenched in a buttermilk syrup and orange-infused cream cheese and enriched with pineapple, pecans and coconut.

Poh made a nine-layer version of this "very decadent" pastry for a wedding last weekend, but you can enjoy smaller-scale versions of her desserts at Jamface (such as a French cream tart with custard base – another Rich recipe – and beetroot chocolate cake). "None of our stuff looks overly manicured, it's very rustic and home-made," she says.

The bacon and egg sandwich has a parmesan and thyme crust on it ("it's like something I did on MasterChef") and it's a recipe she's saved for the cafe. "I've always wanted to put that on a menu," says Poh, but it was "too labour-intensive" for the earlier versions of Jamface. The business existed as stall set-ups at Adelaide's Wayville Showgrounds and The Market Shed on Holland. Having proper cooking facilities has allowed Poh to flex her cooking skills – and the new Jamface location has also enabled her to get out the toolkit and paintbrushes, too.

"We've hand-built the entire interior – my husband and I," she says. She crafted the hanging bottle light fixtures, built tables, and helped paint all the 223 squares on the floor. This hands-on approach echoes throughout the menu – the granola and yoghurt is house made, as are all the market-inspired drinks, such as watermelon strawberry and mint juice and a beetroot lemon beverage garnished with chocolate mint from Poh's garden. The coffee is by local roaster Goat Candy.

"The Central Market is a really historical place in Adelaide and when I applied, they didn't make it easy for me. They stressed very hard that it's an institution in Adelaide, and everyone they invite to the space has to understand that you're part of the community – and that was the very thing that I wanted to be a part of," she says. "I really love that feeling of being part of a huge community. It's so nice. You do your swaps all the time – I'll give you a sandwich, you'll give me eight avocados [laughs]. I really love that mentality."

Open Tue 7am-5pm; Thu 7am-5pm; Fri 7am-9pm; Sat 7am-3pm.

Stall 28-29, Adelaide Central Market, 44-60 Gouger Street, Adelaide, 0433 815 137, jamface.com.au