Island Cafe

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
When Dane Knezevic took over the Island Cafe from his mother in 2004, coffee was just another drink and pulling lattes didn’t compare with playing league soccer in Sydney. Then he met Justin Metcalf, head of the World Barrista Championship and international ambassador for Fair Trade Coffee, and his world changed. The coffee bug bit. He’s now an international judge himself, talks passionately about roasting, ageing and blending beans, about taste and tactile balance, sweetness, body, acidity and finish, about what the colour of the shot tells you about how the machine is running, how only a few degrees of temperature difference can affect the crema, extract and sweetness of the coffee and why, in cooler mornings, he runs his grinder about seven turns coarser than he does in the warmer afternoons.

It’s not surprising then that this is one of the most popular coffee spots in town. Small, dark-timber panelled and without any decor pretensions, it’s coffee first, coffee second and the food almost-as-an-afterthought third. But their breakfasts start the hearts of a big part of Hobart’s CBD every day and they keep them fuelled with simple, beautifully fresh bruschettas, salads, real burgers and delicious sweet in-betweens throughout the day. The meals might play second fiddle to the coffee machine, but what the tiny kitchen does, it does well.

Graeme Phillips