FEATURE: CAFES

New wave

Two culinary talents on how they’re creating cafés with serious appeal.

EDITED BY Annabelle Cloros

THE CAFÉ BUSINESS isn’t easy. Trends come and go, and customers spend their weekends trying the latest and greatest openings, quickly moving onto the next without a thought of returning to the last. But there are many venues that are going the distance thanks to big-picture thinking and a multi-faceted approach to food, drink, and experience.

Hospitality speaks to Dale Kemp from Melbourne’s Yolk Group and Michael Ico from Sydney’s Splash, Soulmate, and Superfreak about creating cafés that roll design, quality food and beverage, and that coveted it-factor into one slick offering.

Dale Kemp, executive chef of Yolk Group

Hospitality: How would you define your core points of difference?

Dale: We’ve had a point of difference for longer than most people. I think that’s really what set us apart, at Terror Twilight, especially. You need to get creative with the menu and create food that gets people out of the house and into your venue, as opposed to any of the other cafés in Melbourne, which can be hard, so you need to take risks. We’ve put dishes on that we thought would be a hit but have come off a week later. I think a lot of people are playing it a bit too safe, you need to get creative with the food and trust your own palate.

At Terror Twilight, we don’t do eggs Benedict. We never have; it’s something you see at every other café. We play into Japanese flavours instead, for example, eggs Kurosawa is our biggest seller which is essentially just eggs, rice, sauce, some pickles, and veg. It started off as a special four or five years ago and we had to put it on as a permanent menu item. It’s something we could never take off now and it’s become a signature.

H: What was the brief when you were developing your latest venue Ophelia?

D: We went with the decision to make it not just a café, but a place where people can come by for a drink and a snack later on in the day. I think we were at the point where we needed to try and do something different, and we also have Tinker [café] up the road, so we didn’t want to do the same thing.

We went in with the idea of creating food we like to eat without putting too many boundaries in place. The brief is more lunch-y, less eggs, and less shying away from dishes we have had up our sleeves for a while that didn’t suit our other venues. I think it’s going to show what we’ve learned along the way from all our other venues and openings. It’s a venue that us operators would like to eat at. It has a more homey, laidback feel.

You could probably see moving into an all-day offering as progression for us as a group. We’re using some nicer suppliers when it comes to the food and letting the produce shine a bit more. There’s going to be a breakfast loaf featuring quark, which is a German cheese/yoghurt, cranberries, thyme, and syrup. There will also be a savoury galette and a buckwheat crèpe with buffalo ricotta, roasted zucchini, rocket, and pesto.

H: Ophelia is preparing to open shortly. How would you describe the lead-up to launch?

D: We’re trying not to sign things off too early. It’s nice to have had the time and to be able to be super critical with the food. At this stage, the same menu will run all day (but that could change), and we may have some items that come on at lunch. There’s also a large cabinet offering in the morning from 7am, with the final items going out between 10am and 2pm.

H: Beverages beyond coffee and juice have become a core part of the modern café offering. What can guests expect at Ophelia?

D: We will have a miso butterscotch latte that has been through a long testing process. I would say it’s going to be a signature drink. We will also have lacto-fermented sodas and a nice no- and low-alcohol list alongside rotating wine options. We have been doing two wine tastings every day and will mainly focus on Australian producers, which is the same for the other drinks as well. We are trying to keep it as local as possible because we very spoiled, even just in Victoria, with great produce and wine.

Michael Ico, co-founder of Superfreak, Splash, and Soulmate

H: What do you look for when securing a café location?

M: Generally, we love to be in residential locations but still close to commercial areas.

Most of our cafés have been in residential areas. We’ve always preferred to be off a main road so there is less noise and we don’t see street frontage as a big thing for us. When it came to Superfreak, my business partner Dan’s partner teaches at Scout Pilates next door, and they have the whole building. It all happened very fast.

H: How would you describe the culinary direction of Superfreak?

M: We wanted to be more health-driven, but it’s turned into café food as we know it that’s nourishing. We didn’t want to alienate anyone and for people to think we were just health food, so we moulded it to be in-between. We also don’t have a full kitchen, so we had to work within our constraints.

H: How did you come to work with Aplenty’s Michaela Johansson?

M: When we were talking about getting a chef to consult and write the menu, we wanted someone to create dishes that could be recreated by baristas, for example. Michaela resonated the most with us because we got along so well, and she could also see the vision we wanted. There were only two changes to the menu we currently have. She has a lot of great ideas.

H: Which dishes have been the most popular so far?

M: The porridge. We wanted to put a porridge on that was healthy but not covered up with fruit, so we used quality grains and buckwheat. But when we got to the tasting, Michaela had made it into a bit of a mash…like an old-school porridge with brown sugar and a clump of butter. It was the best porridge I’d ever eaten. The rotating salads we have on sell out fast throughout the day and the morning plate also sells quite well.

H: What are some of the standout beverages?

M: Coffee sells the most. We do an adaptogen hot chocolate which has medicinal mushrooms in it, and we also have a smoothie with blue spirulina which does well. We didn’t want to have too many beverages on the menu, and we ended up with a tonne.

H: Superfreak has a unique, distinct fit out — talk us through the ideation of the space.

M: I am very much into architecture and design. Before I started working in hospitality, I was accepted to study architecture, but then I decided not to do it, so this has been super exciting for me. We have always done café fit outs ourselves, but when we got this space, we decided to get YSG on board. We told them about our concept and that we wanted a record player in there, and showed them the food and a little bit of the branding.

The inspiration wasn’t from us whatsoever, YSG came up with it. I know the idea for them was that they wanted it to feel homely. We have a mashup of ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s furniture in there and cork floors. It’s a little bit nostalgic and there are so many weird little pieces; we have a crazy lamp from New York, and vases sourced from different places around Sydney.

H: All your cafés have been incredibly well-received — what do you attribute your success to?

M: I’ve only recently realised that I love hospitality, and this is my career. For so long, I’ve been in the motion of, ‘I’ll open a shop and we’ll just do this without much thought’. But now we try and nail every aspect of a venue from the get-go.

Before we opened Superfreak, we did things we wouldn’t have done when we were younger. We had all our staff handbooks ready to go and now we know exactly what needs to be done.

We’re really good at hiring people and we always talk about our core values, which revolve around being hospitable — that’s why we’re in the hospitality industry. Being hospitable means being welcoming and making people feel special when they come in. It’s about making sure we say ‘G’day’ to people when they walk in the door and not acting like we’re too cool, so that’s a big part of it. I think that is our main focus above everything else. We focus on that more than we do food and coffee.

• Superfreak’s most popular dish is porridge with butter

• Ophelia’s menu will move from day to night

• YSG sourced unique pieces from abroad for Superfreak

• Local wines take pride of place on Ophelia’s list