Speakeasy Kitchen Bar is one of my favourite spots on Chapel Street, it’s about 10 months old, serves great coffee, great food and it has a vibrant ambience. I’m in love with the shop fit out, natural light and the modern earthy feel. The lustrous new fittings and décor is accompanied by young, friendly and trendy staff, which eliminates the pretentious cockiness that this place could have easily acquired. My friend Josh seems to think that the staff need to smile more, but I actually the melancholic persona and cool edge they have. P.S Josh is a bitch!
It has three/four areas with their own unique vibe. The main entrance hall and front outdoor courtyard has a fresh-hip-cafe/cocktail-bar-vibe, where you can sit with a book and coffee for hours. When you head deeper inside, you end up in a sophisticated little restaurant area, and outside through the glass doors is an open clean-grunge restaurant/bar with graffiti art, perfect for after work drinks. Also upstairs, which I haven’t been to yet. The owners/whoever-was-in-charge somehow tied all of these different environments in very well.
Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, English muffin, spinach and hollandaise sauce. The hollandaise was perfect, and the salmon and spinach were very flavoursome. The egg was slightly over-cooked, so it lacked that oozing yolky goodness. Plated up nicely and the hero was definitely the hollandaise sauce.
Fiery breakfast, scrambled eggs cooked with harissa and coriander with merguez sausage on toast. I don’t normally eat scrambled eggs, but I had no regrets with this dish. The herbs and spices in the scrambled eggs were seasoned well, the merguez sausage was delicious, moist and tender. The toast was a little bit burnt, but I was in a good mood so didn’t really notice.
Prawn fattoush salad. Fresh and vibrant lunch with 3 large pan-fried, flavoursome prawns, with fresh crispy salad ingredients. (I forgot what was in it.) It was delicious.
Speakeasy Kitchen Bar
03 9824 0770
South Yarra/Toorak
359 Chapel St
8/10
