Hello Baby! Meet Waterloo's cute new arrival

Ooh, yeah, baby! From the velvety, baby-pink chairs to an electric-pink neon scrawl that screams "this is the real one, baby", Waterloo's new Baby Coffee Co. introduces some serious glamour to the usual cookie-cutter cafe business model.

Alessandro and brother Gianni Panetta (Baker Bos, Bel & Brio) and John Davidson jnr are the proud parents. "We wanted it to be our baby, so we just thought, why don't we call it Baby?" says Gianni Panetta.

The name of the consulting chef is a mystery because he's under contract elsewhere before officially coming on board, but word is, it's someone who used to work at Quay. Not that you can add soft-serve and 100s 'n' 1000s to anything at Quay for $1.

The space

Baby services its own residential building – the contemporary low-rise Garden House designed by Melbourne's Hecker Guthrie and Sydney's Icon Co – as well as a relaxed, laptop-lugging local crowd.

It's cool and light inside the baby-sized glass-walled cafe, and there's a wide breezy terrace furnished with white metal tables and pink-cushioned chairs for summer days and nights.

The food

Mystery chef takes familiar cafe fare – like an egg-and-bacon roll ($18) – and then disrupts it, in a good way. So the bacon is actually slow-cooked pork belly, which tastes like bacon's dad.

Cacio e pepe fries ($5) are crisp and thin under their shower of grated pecorino and cracked black pepper (heavier showering hand, please).

Slippy-smooth espresso panna cotta ($18) is glammed up with strawberry mousse, honeycomb crunch, fruit and muesli, and a Big Man Ting burger ($16) is double beef and double cheese in a milk bun, perfect with an icy cold Kona Big Wave ale from Hawaii.

Breads aren't as convincing as they could be, and the chicken salad is a bore, with its clumps of pulled white meat and coarse kale slaw.

The brew

Grown-up and good; a medium-dark roast of Colombian, Brazilian, Guatemalan and Sumatran exclusive to Baby by way of Collective Roasting Solutions of St Peters and Alexandria, a caffeinated co-operative of independent coffee roasters who share equipment and skills.

Milk coffees are hazelnutty and super-velvety, piccolo lattes have a bittersweet edge of cocoa, and espressos are punchy. Plus there are rotating single origin iced, cold-brewed and filtered coffees; vegan (almond milk) berry smoothies and salted caramel dark hot chocolates. And booze.

The booze

As they say on the menu, "you can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning". Try an aperitivo of Campari, sweet vermouth and beer (uh huh, beer), or a bottomless mimosa of prosecco and OJ.

We look forward to seeing what happens when the local proletariat start turning up to work at 10am delightfully tipsy after a Flick the Bean cocktail – Nicaraguan rum, espresso, Falernum liqueur and lemonade – for breakfast.

Avo index: Satisfactory. The Avo Pesto tToast comes with heirloom tomato, purple brussels sprouts, roasted cauliflower and blood orange ($14)

Caffe latte: $4.50

Loving: The cloth table napkins monogrammed with pink Baby logos.

Not getting: $4.50 for a piccolo latte. Why punish piccolo drinkers? We're the best!