The Beaufort St Merchant

By : Liz | 0 Comments | On : April 27, 2009 | Category : Reviews

The Beaufort St Merchant – 488 Beaufort St Highgate
Breakfast served 8am – 12pm weekdays, 8am – 3pm weekends and public holidays.
Licensed – yes. Great selection of wines!

Last night I went to bed wondering if my sister would be home from down south so we could go for breakfast today. I was glad to wake up to her being home and wanting to go to “The Beaufort St Merchant” like we had been talking about for a while!

We arrived at peak breakfast time and luckily got a table outside quite easily. I thought that sitting outside on Beaufort st would be noisy and unpleasant but I found it to be ok, and I hardly noticed the traffic at all. Although sitting there at 5.30pm might be a different story – but who cares if it’s not breakfast time! “The Beaufort St Merchant” is half cafe and half gourmet food and wine merchant. We had a browse around the shop at the back and there were soooooo many yummy things I could have bought. But… back to the breakfast!!

We looked over the relatively small but gourmet breakfast menu and began tossing up between a couple of the menu items. It was already a difficult choice! Did we go for something familiar or something a little different? There was the usual toast selection at $5 up to the “Big Belly Breakfast” for $18, which was toast, eggs, chipolatas, bacon, balsamic tomatoes, mushrooms and beans. There is also the vegetarian option available. Then there was the different menu items like… “Spanish Breakfast”, which consisted of chorizo, potato, spanish beans, roasted roma tomatoes, grilled eggs and dipping bread; “Mushroom Bruschetta” which was made up of enoki, portabello and shitake mushrooms, rocket, danish feta and pagnotta and for those with a morning sweet tooth there is the “Breakfast Trifle”, which is layers of poached fruit, oats, seeds, nuts, maple syrup and yogurt – YUM. Hopefully you can see why it was a difficult choice for us.

You have to go up to the counter to order at this cafe. The guy behind the counter was very friendly, despite trying to make coffee’s, take orders and tell waiters where to take drinks. I was impressed he held it all together! I ordered the “Mushroom Bruschetta”, a cappuccino AND vanilla milkshake (I’m addicted to milk ok?). My sister ordered the “Spanish Breakfast” and a latte. The milkshake came out quickly and was the standard fair vanilla milkshake which I gulped down! The coffee’s were next and were very disappointing. There was barely any coffee flavour and it seemed like they had run a few too many coffee’s through the one filter. The conversation around the bad coffee soon disappeared when our meals arrived… WOW! The “Spanish Breakfast” was served on a wooden paddle board… and looked absolutely delicious. My “Mushroom Bruschetta” was piled high on the plate with swirls of balsamic reduction on the plate.

We tucked into our meals and my sister commented a few times on how great the chorizo from Mondos tasted. I had a bite and it was soft with a slight smokey flavour. The beans had the “spanish” flavour with paprika and tomato bases and my sis tells me they were delicious! My meal, despite having no tomato was still very flavoursome with the fresh rocket, danish feta and the soft mushrooms. I thought it might have needed the tomatoes for the ‘sweetness’ but the mushrooms seemed to take care of that. We both cleaned our plates completely and felt full and happy!

I would definitely go back to “The Beaufort St Merchant” for breakfast… and it would have made my top three if it wasn’t for the coffee. The food was fantastic, staff were friendly and it offers a little more with the shop at the back of the cafe.