Labld review: With its scattershot menu, this new kid in an old shop is very 2017

Labld, Marrickville

132 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville

80560686, labld.com.au

★★★★

The lowdown

Main attractions: Attentive service, innovative food

Must-try: Bird's nest bowl

Insta-worthy dish: Pandan pancakes

Prices: $5.50-$22

Tea: The Little Marionette

Coffee: T Totaler

Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options: Plenty of options for all

Open: 8am-4pm daily

It takes a lot of guts to open a cafe anywhere near Two Chaps, Marrickville's reigning coffee darling. With an entirely vego menu (not that you'd ever notice were it not for the curiously absent bacon with your eggs), commitment to supreme coffee and a rotating roster of doughnuts daily, Two Chaps has rightly earned their place as the suburb's cafe champion.

To open your own place a five-minute walk away? It sounds a little foolhardy.

But Labld, the new kid on the block in Marrickville, is an ambitious and worthy addition to the neighbourhood.

Set on a corner block on the site of an abandoned convenience store (remember those?), the place is cosy and welcoming from the start. Unlike Two Chaps, which can at times feel overrun with crowds (which can make some of the staff a little abrupt on occasion), everyone here is really, really happy to see you.

You might put that down to the fact that they've only been open a couple of months and there's plenty of steam in their engines, but in fact owners Benjamin Terkalas​ and Kabir Sayed have been in the Sydney cafe game for years (Terkalas owned Beejay's​, another Marrickville mainstay, and Sayed worked at the Dove and Olive in Surry Hills). That cheerfulness? It's real.

A broadly Asian menu, there's something a little scattershot about what's on offer (Brussels sprouts! Granola! Mushrooms on toast! Fried plantains!), but somehow, it works.

The menu runs all day, encompassing breakfast and lunch, which honestly, is just as it should be (it's 2017: we deserve to eat bacon and eggs at 3pm if that's our bag, don't you reckon?).

For sweet tooths, there's a stack of pandan pancakes topped with sticky caramelised banana and honeycomb cream that looks like it's been made for Instagram but actually tastes amazing. There's a poke bowl, a curry, a bacon and egg roll with a slap of spicy kimchi. There are also your classics: eggs on toast, granola and yoghurt, a burger (warning: it's called the Big Kahuna, and it lives up to the hype – it's a beast of a thing, but deliciously so).

There are some truly inventive dishes happening here, too. The bird's nest is a delicate-looking dish that packs a big punch: poached eggs wrapped in "potato spaghetti" (AKA strands of deep-fried potato, AKA poached eggs with a french fry dressing gown), with a healthy dusting of sil-gochu, a type of dried Korean pepper that perfectly complements the creamy bed of avocado puree the whole thing sits on. It looks like a bird's nest but tastes like brekky heaven.

And whatever you do, don't leave without trying a momo dumpling or three. A testament to Sayed's background, these Himalayan dumplings are heavier than other Asian-style dumplings, but with a slick of vinegar to balance things out. Try the brekky momo: dumplings filled with wine-infused bacon, egg, tomatoes and shallots. Yes, please and thank you.

They say if you build it, they will come. They came to Two Chaps, a cafe that began with nothing but the titular two men, a garage full of coffee beans and a couple of loaves of bread. And they're now doing it with Labld, a former corner store reinvented for 2017.

In the area

Gelato Franco, 281 Marrickville Road

Tiramisu ice-cream that's better than real tiramisu? It's real, it's spectacular, and you'll find it here. With a short menu of flavours and a focus on fresh ingredients, this old-school gelateria is the real deal. Grab a coffee while you're there, too – they make a mean espresso.

Where's Nick, 236 Marrickville Road

Tip: don't look for a wine bar when you're searching for this place – look for the old continental cake shop that once sat in its place. The natural wine bar is a newcomer to Marrickville, and a very welcome one at that: locals have flocked to it since its opening in September for its expertly curated wine list and tasty pizzas.

Titus Jones, 337 Illawarra Road

Nestled among the Asian grocers and banh mi joints of Illawarra Road, Titus Jones is a tiny bar with a lot going on. Go for the $10 cocktails during happy hour, stay for all the other cocktails you'll want to have when happy hour's over.

Hypmotive Hub, 155 Marrickville Road

A maker space dedicated to up-and-coming local artists, you'll find ceramics, watercolours, jewellery, homewares and other quirky-cool bits and bobs here.