Bookings, hash browns, all-day breakfast: Cheery cafe a return to Melbourne’s glory days

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In one corner, toddlers are getting their first taste of creamy scrambled eggs. At the counter, someone’s asking if they can bring their bike inside so it doesn’t get pinched. A regular is welcomed with “We haven’t seen you for a few days!”

This is just another day at Beautiful Jim Key, which is not the locksmith offshoot of Jim’s Mowing and is also not the name of a Bill Callahan song. It’s a seven-month-old cafe in Brunswick that will take you back to the breakfast glory days of Melbourne 15 years ago, and names like Auction Rooms, Duchess of Spotswood and the Kettle Black. Or perhaps Cumulus Inc, whose breakfast service quietly retired after Melbourne’s lockdowns but is still discussed by diehards (like me).

Beautiful Jim Key co-owner Josh Murphy is the chef who helped open the groundbreaking Flinders Lane diner alongside his boss Andrew McConnell and other partners. It shows.

There’s no bacon buttie or blood sausage here, but eggs are boiled not poached, British caff staples – including baked beans – are embraced, and if you want a tin of anchovies with your broccoli-pecorino toastie, Murphy will oblige.

This is his second venue post-McConnell (the other is West Footscray pizzeria Harley & Rose), this one with his partner Priyam Chovhan.

The menu wanders from British greasy spoon to slightly South Asian to sandwich deli to Melbourne cafe to French wine bar. But it keeps all the balls in the air, much like the floor team who bring restaurant polish to cafe service.

Details matter to Murphy and head chef Cat Freeman. Smoked trout and hash brown, a familiar combination, feels new thanks to a thatch of sorrel leaves and a pool of herby, French-style fresh cheese. The trout is smoked and cured in-house. And the hash browns! Tiny strands of potato from the peerless Spud Sisters are pressed into a brick, all golden crunch and creamy interior.

Avocado toast gains a different creaminess from a slick of tahini and sesame oil. On the plate sits another of the world’s great toast dishes: pan con tomate, rerouted from Spain to Italy by stracciatella cheese.

The menu wanders from British greasy spoon to slightly South Asian to sandwich deli to Melbourne cafe to French wine bar.

The lunch menu is an egg-free zone. Poached chicken with green beans, grapes and olives; gnocchi baked with mushrooms and bubbling taleggio cheese; a fish burger. Autumn’s earthy sensibilities are gathered into a duck and lentil ragu spooned over celeriac puree the colour of fresh cream, with pops of sweet quince and snappy, crimson-coloured radicchio.

A cafe is the Swiss army knife of places we eat. They host family outings from the pram years to the teen phase; nurture relationships from blind date to sharing the Saturday paper; house laptop workers and solo self-care acolytes. Room to sprawl, tables you can book, takeaway, water bowls for dogs − these are all a given. Or at least they were.

Whether it was the disruption of the pandemic or the subsequent explosion in rents and overheads or perhaps something else entirely, cafes dwindled to a “lite” version of themselves about five years ago. Bakeries took their place as the morning hangout of choice. Sandwich shops and their handheld breakfasts surged in popularity. Tiny coffee bars with excellent beans but no food sprouted.

I like these places, but some days you want a seat, and a table that’s wider than a basketball, and something that’s been cooked just then, just for you.

BJK feels like a burst of sunshine, partly because of its very tall north-facing windows, but also because of the fitout. A paintbox of yellows, greens, pinks and blues, the focal point is an arrangement of hanging lights by artist Ruth Allen that look like balloons at a kid’s party. Each one weighs 10 kilograms, Chovhan tells me, but looking at them makes you feel buoyant.

Or maybe it’s that you could book a table (even for two people), and the eggs are cooked jammier than yours at home, and you can have egg curry for breakfast on a cold Melbourne morning, or even a cold afternoon because breakfast is served all day. That’s why we go out for breakfast.

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