Cook & Archie's

Cook and Archie's is almost always busy. It doesn’t seem to matter what time you visit this tucked away Surry Hills cafe – there are always people sitting and reading the papers over the great coffee, conducting business meetings or tucking into a delicious range of freshly cooked food. The staff are efficient and friendly and greet a lot of the customers by name making this a truly local and well loved part of the Surry Hills food scene. With Devonshire Street and its huge selection of cafes and restaurants just a street away you have to assume Cook and Archie's are getting things right.

This has certainly been the case on my three visits there. The first time I went in to book a table for lunch I found myself wanting to stay and being immediately won over by Craig the barista's art. He made coffees that looked so good I wanted to swim in them! The effortless way he creates a pattern on top of his lattes is a work of art. If you like coffee then you need to go to Cook and Archie's to pay tribute to a coffee master. You won’t have a hard time finding good food to match either.

Later on that day after lunch we tasted one of Craig's lattes and indeed it was good. We lunched well on a combination of Turkish inspired lamb salad and a delicious salmon and potato cake combination followed by a divine Portuguese custard tart. The menu is creative and has a mixed Turkish/Italian feel. I could quite happily devote my time in Sydney to working my way down this menu with occasional diversions by way of the specials board.

When we returned a week later for brunch we enjoyed yet more fine coffee and I had a truly special granola experience. It took a while to turn up, which was explained when it arrived with an entire fruit bowl worth of freshly cut up fruit sitting on top of it. This was followed by a layer of yoghurt mixed with honey and it was only after much fossicking that I reached the layer of tasty, crunchy granola underpinning it all. It shouldn't need to be said, but having suffered attractively presented but unripe fruit salads in restaurants and hotels that really ought to know better (crunchy nectarine being a particularly loathsome item) it was a real pleasure to be surrounded by a pile of perfectly ripe and deliciously tasty, freshly prepared fruit. Our only sadness is that this fine institution doesn’t offer Eggs Benedict as a breakfast option.

I have since gone back to Cook and Archie's for coffee and a tasty cherry tart and I have to admit to being addicted to the place now. I have extreme trouble walking past the wafting smell of coffee without diving in for a fix. Ignore Devonshire Street – come here instead.