Cobb Lane

The situation was tense. Supplies of certain delicious baked things - ginger and toffee balls, chocolate and berry lamingtons, some of the city's finest doughnuts - were in high demand. The pastry cook - a young English chap by the name of Matt Forbes, who trained under Michelin-starred chefs back home and tested his mettle in Shannon Bennett's kitchen out here - was baking day and night and delivering the goods in person to those little nooks where the bearded, the bespectacled and the sometimes-tattooed have honed the cafe offer to nothing more than the best coffee and a handful of treats.

What's a lad under pressure to do? Scale back? Not likely. In this situation, any young chef worth his salted caramel would find a shopfront in one of Melbourne's suburban villages and, to borrow a phrase from a resource-state premier, redouble his efforts.

Which is what Forbes has done, in that most village-like of suburbs, Yarraville.

Not that he has gone crazy: his brand-new Cobb Lane cafe and bakery features a small open kitchen, a two-group espresso machine, 16 seats and a bakery working overtime out the back.

The menu is pared down to just seven dishes, among them toast (bread baked fresh on premises), house-made granola, and asparagus spears with baked polenta and a soft poached egg.

House-made HP sauce adorns the British Breakfast. It's not one of those Big Cafe Breakfasts - a mound of fried and grilled stuff slathered with various sauces - but a careful composition of sourdough toast with black pudding, Welsh rarebit on a small slice of brioche loaf, some tidy rashers of bacon and a rough-hewn Scotch egg.

The black pudding comes from Pacdon Park, based near Echuca. It's made by folks from Lancashire and is, says Forbes, the most authentic he has tasted in Australia. It has a rich, almost pâté-like flavour, a dark crimson colour and a crumbly-creamy texture.

The rashers are from Pacdon, too: "green" bacon that has been cured but not boiled, fatty and sweet. The just-poached pullet egg encased in pork mince and bread crumbs is delicious and satisfying. The HP sauce is tangy and sweet, and there's a scattering of semi-dried tomatoes that give another tangy-sweet lift.

Coffee is from Clement Coffee Roasters - the Pony blend works well in milk, and there's a seasonal single origin, currently an Ethiopian with fruity flavours of bitter lemon.

It has been open barely a fortnight; the cake cabinet is turning over and the doughnuts are marching out the door: crisp outside, chewy inside and filled with creamy exotica such as coconut and kaffir lime with rice pudding, and raspberry and lychee jam with rose custard. Forbes says he sold 60 before lunch on the first day, 80 the next and more than 100 on day three.

Cake supplies would seem to have been secured - but only for those who get in early.

Do … leave room for a doughnut. Or a ginger-toffee ball. Or something

Don't … all turn up at once on Saturday morning; there are only 16 seats

Dish … British Breakfast of Scotch egg, black pudding and Welsh rarebit with home-made HP sauce

Vibe … Best of British with even better cakes and coffee