Mitte Cafe

Mitte Café
76 Michael St, Fitzroy North, VIC
Atomica coffee


Just had to try The Age Cheap Eats 2009's breakfast place of the year...

Named after Berlin's hip café quarter, Mitte is yet another fine example of the off-the-beaten path café. Situated on a sunny residential corner, huge windows light the cosy indoors or, if you prefer, there are lots of pavement tables.

What I didn't like was the fact that food sits on the counter until all dishes for the table are ready. Not only does it go cold, there were tonnes of houseflies - presumably from the fresh fruit.

The menu is surprisingly broad, given that all food is cooked in a tiny makeshift kitchen. Needless to say the wait for the food was pretty long. Looking at the orders go out, the popular choices were a lavish freshly cut fruit salad, combining peach, pomengranite, kiwi, lychee, banana, segmented orange and pink grapefruit with mint and syrup, served with yoghurt ($10), Poached eggs with a middle Eastern chick pea bake, topped with Meredith marinated goats fetta and a shallot and herb salad, served with avocado, lemon and Dench toast ($15), and Pikelets with mascarpone and lemon curd or berry compote ($10).

We tried the famous Poached eggs Caesar style on sourdough with a garlic aioli, crispy bacon, cos lettuce, shaved parmesan and anchovies ($15). The deconstructed salad was imaginative and well executed.

The Breakfast crumble - vanilla and cinnamon poached apples and seasonal apricots topped with a toasted macadamia nut crumble, served with marscapone ($8.50) was warm and comforting. Overall, I won’t agree with Cheap Eats, but it was pretty good!