Quick Bites: Tricycle Cafe, Five Points burgers, Tartine, winter wine festival and polka-dot pyrex

EAT

Wayne Looyen​ is a lanky Kiwi chef with a penchant for baking and DIY cafe construction, who fitted out a place of his own in Willoughby last year. A cosy bolthole in a nondescript row of shops on Mowbray Road, the Tricycle Cafe's theme is "do you remember?", reflected in its genteel decor including a magnificent old sideboard that displays Looyen's old-fashioned cakes, mostly from the Edmonds cookery book, a New Zealand institution. He only bakes one at a time, and some regulars time their visits as certain cakes are pulled from the oven. A favourite is the one he calls Mum's Cake (pictured on the stand), a spiced apple crumble cake handed down through his family. "It's one of those things you always make when people come around," Looyen says. There might also be carrot cake, a chunky, moist slab slathered in cream cheese icing topped with walnuts and dried cranberries, mandarin and ginger tart, sour cherry brownies, or beetroot and chocolate cake; the line-up changes daily. The drinks are good too, with coffee by Allpress and tea by Newtown's T Totaler. 132 Mowbray Road, Willloughby, 0425 310 437.

EAT MORE

While we're on the lower north shore, let's talk burgers. There's been a lot of hype around the buns at North Sydney's Five Points, on another unprepossessing strip of busy road. Consulting chef is Tomislav Martinovic​, acclaimed for his inventive flair at his previous hatted restaurant, Tomislav. Now he joins a host of chefs, including Warren Turnbull and Neil Perry, to turn his sights on the burger. Five Points is named after the five boroughs of New York – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Staten Island – each with its own burger. There's nothing too inventive about the Manhattan, but damn it's good. Soft, plump, crisp-toasted bun, tick. Plenty of good pickles, tick. Iceberg lettuce, tick. That weird orangey-plastic cheese that tastes like gooey salt but is somehow imperative, tick. Most importantly, quality beef patty well charred on the outside, rare on the inside, mega-tick. Pair it with a salted caramel milkshake and all is well with the world. 124 Walker Street (entry on Berry Street), North Sydney.

AND A BIT MORE

Meanwhile in Mascot, Gardeners Road is not the kind of place you'd go to relax, but chef Anthony Telford left Balmoral fine-diner Public Dining Room to open Tartine here. For first timers, finding it might involve driving up and down the road a few times before spotting the right driveway. Once there, grab the couch in the corner and sink down to admire the decor, with lots of reclaimed wood, Parisian touches and half a disco ball holding a hanging plant. The name refers to the cafe's speciality of open face sandwiches, par example: French onion with shredded beef, crispy onion and gruyere, or pears, ricotta, crumble and honey on sour cherry toast. Telford also jazzes up the jaffle. The heirloom tomato and buffalo mozzarella sounds healthy, but you might secretly prefer the Nutella, banana and marshmallow. Stop it! as the menu says. Coffee is by Grinders, and as you leave, bag a loaf of Brasserie Bread and a dark chocolate ganache and runny caramel tart to go, to give you strength to face the traffic. 635 Gardeners Road, Mascot, 9700 9847.

DRINK

Note for the diary – June long weekend, Shoalhaven Coast Winter Wine Festival. From Kangaroo Valley's Yarrawa Estate to Bawley Vale Estate at Bawley Point, nine wineries in the region are throwing a party with plenty to eat and drink. Silos Estate in Berry has cheese tastings and a giant blue duck called Burt, Coolangatta Estate at Shoalhaven Heads has a burger and oyster bar, and at Ulladulla, Cupitt's Wines hosts its annual long table lunch. Meanwhile, this weekend you can try the food and wines of Mudgee at the Pyrmont Festival's headline event, as well as dishes from local haunts including Blue Eye Dragon, Cafe Morso and LuMi. Winter Wine Festival, June 6-8, shoalhavencoastwine.com.au; Pyrmont Festival, May 16-17, 11am-5pm, Pirrama Park, free, pyrmontfestival.com.au.