Cafe Ish

LOCATION
On the corner of Campbell and Foster Streets.

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
Every corner should have one of these – a relaxed cafe with inventive food and a few quirky points of difference like three types of salt to sprinkle on your food, a coffee grinder for pepper and a bush-tucker-meets-Japanese fusion menu. Campbell Street newcomer, Cafe Ish, which relocated from Albion Street earlier in the year, boasts all of these. And while it may sound just a tad pretentious to offer clients a citrus salt with their lunch, this place doesn’t make a fuss over it. The salt is there because it’s fun, not because that’s the only right way to eat pasta, darling. And, it seems perfectly natural to sprinkle chilli, black volcano salt or both on your crocodile sausage sandwich.

The relaxed vibe of the cafe extends to a breakfast menu which has earned a reputation for the likes of “benedict ish” (poached eggs with baby spinach, hollandaise and soft shell crab), “the big ish” (with eggs, bacon, roasted tomato, crocodile sausage, wild-thyme-roasted mushrooms, toast and baked beans) or the “croc in a rock” (chunky toast with egg, shallots, fetta and crocodile sausage in the centre). Lunch heads into “sandw ish”-es like roast Wagyu beef (with baby spinach, wasabi mayo and tomato) and kangaroo meatballs (with organic tasty cheese and house-made tomato sauce) on a choice of breads. There are also larger dishes, including “pasta ish” dishes like spaghetti with Japanese mushrooms, Australian olive oil and seaweed flakes and “salad ish” choices. Dinner dishes (available Wednesday to Saturday) combine various native Aussie flavours (like kangaroo, crocodile, myrtle, bush tomato and so forth) with Japanese twists. The cafe also has inventive drink and “sweet ish” menus that feature a signature wattleseed maccacino (a nutty coffee), Australian breakfast tea (we’re not in England, after all) and delights involving waffles and macadamias.

Agnes Gajewska