Kind food at Grace Cafe

Walking through the open, airy doors of Grace Cafe you wouldn’t necessarily think the new Fitzroy place used to be a brothel and porn studio. It’s now a lot nicer thanks to the efforts of new owners Luke Giuliani and Will Dayble.

Will’s got a design studio hidden out back, and you can tell from detail to attention here. It’s on the mural by local artist Adnate, it’s sitting at the hand-crafted tables, it’s with The Beatles tunes playing in the background, it’s with touches like medicine-vial shakers, handmade menus and paper flowers.

Julia and Alex are the chef and waitress duo here, and know their stuff. They prefer serving home style, rather than ‘chefy’ food. We order free-range baked eggs on a chickpea, eggplant, tomato and onion base, with fresh herbs and fetta ($15) and quark-filled crepes ($13) topped with fresh berry coulis ($13). These meals are sided with Dench sourdough, with extra cream and lemon for the crepes.

There’s also BRATs – free-range bacon, rocket, avocado and tomato sangers ($11), salmon bagels with quark ($9), as well as toastie melts with cheese and vegemite or chilli jam ($6).

If you’re thirsty besides coffee there are drinks like mango and spirulina shakes and even Berocca (sans judgement!) And if you’d like to finish on a sweet note there’s homemade yoyos from the jar at the counter.

Grace is one of those slices of human warmth if the city’s feeling a bit cold this winter!

Photos by Lilly-Pilly.

GRACE CAFE
67 Rose Street, Fitzroy
Mon-Fri (closed Tuesdays) 7am-4pm, Sat-Sun 8am-4pm
gracefitzroy.com