Pooches, people-watching and good pickles are the order of the day at Ken’s Continental in Rushcutters Bay

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Ken’s Continental, which opened in April, used to be Jeremy & Sons, the cafe spin-off from chef Mike Mu Sung’s tiny and acclaimed Farmhouse restaurant next door.

Mu Sung, slowly but tenaciously taking over Bayswater Road, is also behind Bones Ramen, the highly rated noodle soup shop across the street.

If you sit at one of Ken’s Continental’s street-facing outdoor tables, Bones Ramen kitchen staff are visible about 50 metres away busying with broth preparations behind a window. Or you can simply lose yourself in people watching.

There are no inside tables at this tiny inner-city deli-cafe and most of the footpath seating is directed outwards, allowing views of chatting, jogging and dog-walking locals with fabulous sunglasses and fashion-forward winter coats circumnavigating a lush footpath fernery corner to greet staff with cheery familiarity.

One woman, dressed entirely in black leather, orders the confit chicken with cannellini and braised radicchio while carrying a small dog. Another customer’s labrador rolls in ecstasy upon eating a snippet of mortadella provided by staff.

At any minute, Ken, a Jeremy & Sons regular after whom Ken’s Continental is named, is expected to dine. Mu Sung says turning Jeremy & Sons, which was named after his cat, into Ken’s Continental, expanding its kitchen space to offer a greater range of dishes and produce, stems from a long-time love of American and European delis.

“We always had an idea we wanted it to be more deli-like,” he says. “But it really requires more experience and knowledge about those products. You can’t just go in and set one up without that. We did the soups and sandwiches [at Jeremy & Sons] for six years and now we’re ready for a more upscale, more involved and wider menu offering.”

Ken’s Continental’s two brass-edged blackboards offer six breakfast options, ranging from continental deli, grilled mortadella or black pudding plates, to scrambled eggs with toast and avocado and mortadella on toast.

There are egg and cheese breakfast muffins, one with sausage, two salads, baguettes, pain aux raisin and croissants from Loulou Boulangerie in Lavender Bay, and four sandwiches including jamon with persimmon and mozzarella and mortadella with chilli pickle and plum.

A charcuterie deli plate and chicken confit plate is one of two bigger lunch options. Head chef Jacob Riwaka, who also oversees Bones Ramen’s kitchen, is particularly proud of the deli plates. “It’s the sort of thing that I want to go out for breakfast for,” he says. “It’s not too heavy, it’s got a bit of everything.”

Out on the footpath, the continental deli plate arrives, a beautifully arranged selection of fluttery prosciutto slices, blue cheese, crunchy pickles, two boiled egg halves and sliced baguette. It is lovely, heightened by a scoop of salt-speckled butter in a tiny metal dish, two fat capers and a wodge of fruity relish.

This is followed by a chicken-filled baguette layered with dill, cucumber and apple, which is luscious inside good chewy bread. “Great sandwich,” says a customer passing by towards the counter. He is also keen, he says, for the eggplant, walnut and dried tomato version.

“The ’80s sandwich,” he says, patting three dogs and ordering a piccolo. If I’d been staying for a longer, more trouser-straining breakfast, it would have been the yellow pea pancake with herb salad, avocado, jamon and soft-boiled egg an older gentleman (is it Ken?) is enjoying two tables away.

But, restraint intact, there is time to order golden, delightfully flaky Loulou croissants and peruse the meat counter inside, which displays prosciutto, finocchiona, mortadella, morcon, saucisson, salami and more, available by the kilo.

There are plans to sell jars of house-made pickled vegetables. So pull up a chair, watch people with tiny dogs and enormous hairstyles and eat cured meats, excellent bread, good pickles, cheese, chicken, trout, eggs and delicately salted butter, and join the perusal of the passing world. And look out for Ken.