Three Blue Ducks

It can sometimes feel to the diner with sand on their feet and breakfast on their mind that the cafes across the road from Bronte Beach rely too heavily on their proximity to the surf, rather than what is on the plate, for their pulling power.

Your towel will be dry by the time you've walked past them to Three Blue Ducks on Macpherson Street but you'll eat well and perhaps even feel you've earned a friand or two for having trudged uphill along sun-baked footpaths, past houses you will never afford, to get there.

The small, 20-seat cafe has an open kitchen populated by staff that look like they might have just stepped out of the water themselves – and are keen to get back there – trying to outdo each other in some kind of highly competitive, share-house toast battle.

Unlike a true share house, however, they can cook. The kitchen is led by Mark LaBrooy, who has Tetsuya's and Cafe Morso on his resume, while local Sam Reid – whose brother Caleb and cousin Ben are responsible for the cafe's mural – works the floor with an easygoing charm. The third blue duck is barista Chris Sorrell.

A note on the well-priced menu highlights the trio's dedication: they make all their own pastries and baked goods (which, if not cooling on wire racks on the counter, can be found in the glass cabinet below). Bondi Junction's Baker Friday – run by an ex-Bourke Street Bakery baker – supplies breads and croissants. They use Single Origin coffee, Country Valley milk and grass-fed Angus beef from Tasmania.

Reid buys the lunch menu's seafood at the market each day and the kitchen uses organic produce where possible, as well as "environmentally friendly" cleaning products.

If this foodie name-checking strikes a chord, take heart from the cafe's proximity to Pasta Emilia and the yet-to-open Iggy's bakery. It might seem a bit over the top if all you're after is a bacon-and-egg roll but that bacon-and-egg roll will be among Sydney's best, so get with the program. Served on a toasted panini, it's a crunchy hand grenade of flavour, the crispy bacon and gooey egg teamed with hollandaise, a terrific capsicum relish and herb oil.

The same herb oil makes an appearance on the avocado toast. It comes as two generous slices of grain toast, one topped with a fan of sliced avocado and flaked salt, the other with four plump, roasted tomato halves and a herby salad of cherry tomatoes and onions.

The ubiquitous Bircher (the creme brulee of cafe breakfasts?) is an attractive and enjoyable assemblage of muesli, shredded apple, strawberries and blueberries. Sorrell's coffee is well made and the juices fresh.

The lunch menu takes it up a notch with daily specials such as blue eye and kipfler potatoes, squid stuffed with chorizo, and chilli mussels, while LaBrooy's chocolate-orange tarts look like motivation enough for a return visit later in the day.

You'll just as likely have to queue here as you would at the cafes nearer the water. The plan when it opened in September was to close by 4pm to get a wave but that has “gone out the window", Reid says. "We've been flat out since day one.”

Summer isn't going to be any easier on them, I suspect, but they can take some comfort knowing that at this time of year the swell is often pretty small.