All Good Things Eatery

Much of the menu has a Greek ring to it at All Good Things. The prawn kritharaki, for one, and the Mykonos chips, and the pork belly plate with tzatziki and myzithra.

But co-owner Simon Lakis shrugs at the notion it's a modern Greek cafe. "The focus is good food," he says, wherever it might be from.

Simon is front-of-house at this smart suburban cafe and his brother Phillip is the head chef. They previously ran PS cafe at Dulwich Hill, but opened All Good Things because they wanted to bring something a cut above to Kingsgrove, the inner-south-west suburb where they grew up and still live.

At their eatery in the central piazza of a new apartment development, they cure their own bacon and salmon, pickle vegetables and make feta cheese.

I'm glad we've booked when we turn up at 11.30am on a damp Sunday at the end of a sodden week; the outside tables are not an option, and inside is buzzing. It's pretty much a full house, which adds warmth to a space more cutting edge than cosy. The fit-out is industrial, with exposed ceilings and the polished concrete floors; even the table legs are made of steel piping.

I am keen to try the homemade pork and fennel sausage with poached eggs, fennel cream, confit potatoes and toast. However, they've run out, testament to how busy the place is. The young waitress is apologetic and I plump instead for the All Good Things breakfast plate, which at $24 is the most expensive item on the menu, lunch included.

The price speaks to the quality of the ingredients rather than any cheffy tricking up. The prosciutto is San Daniele from Italy's north-east where it has been made for centuries from locally reared pigs. A slab of Danish feta gives the tastebuds a good walloping, soothed by silky poached eggs, avocado and tomato. The quality of the latter two ingredients stands out in the simple dish the other grown-up at the table is tucking into, namely avocado on toast, with tomato and labne, for a flavour kick.

The tween at the table is also getting a punch from her strapatsada eggs, courtesy of the feta that's tossed through the otherwise oddly bland scrambled eggs. They are, however, served in a groovy enamel tin bowl.

Meanwhile, the two under-10s chow down on the kids menu cheeseburgers which come in soft milk buns with cracking chunky handcut chips on the side, skin left on. I see in my future a dead-of-winter return just to gorge on a plate of Mykonos chips, those same handcut spuds served with crumbled feta, Greek oregano and sea salt.

Right now, though, I am loving the long dawdle through my breakfast plate, which also comes with a hunk of crusty buttered toast and enough olives to share around the table. The best is yet to come: the ambience and excellent coffee make it easy to stick around (even if our dirty plates linger too long on the table) which we do to the point where, unusually for brunch, dessert starts calling.

There is no kids' ice-cream on the menu, but we ask and the staff happily go off-script and then the extra mile, delivering three serves with strawberry topping, presented with panache in short glasses rather than bowls.

The grown-ups share a serving of knafe, a warm semolina custard with an armour of crispy kataifi (shredded) pastry, drizzled in spiced sugar syrup. It is divine. And quite Greek, if you ask me.

THE PICKS

Breakfast plate; knafe; bacon and egg roll; the chips.

THE COFFEE

Deluca.

THE LOOK

Industrial, with rustic touches.

THE SERVICE

Friendly, efficient and accommodating.