Cheap Eats: Brunelli – the cafe that (almost) has it all
AN Italian institution in the East End has good food, but something is missing, Gordon Knight reports.
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EVERY city needs a Cafe Brunelli. No bookings needed, always a table free and open 24/7, 365 days a year.
Students team dinner with study on the bigger tables, pensioners in purple fleeces drop in for a chat, and the smart Rundle St hospitality crowd grabs a bite here after shifts.
It’s come as you are, everyone is welcome and the menu covers your every comfort-food craving: pizza, pasta, wings, burgers, steaks and schnitties.
The recently renovated space is cleverly laid out to appeal to groups of all sizes, too – booths with banquettes at the back, sizable tables for family and friends gatherings at the front, spots for two or four in between.
Modern chandeliers hang above and the space is punctuated by a faux-foliage (fauxliage?) wall which keeps ambient noise low.
All eyes are drawn to the enormous cake cabinet that sits atop a glowing red panel. Following the red panel leads to the ordering counter and bar.
Prices here aren’t uniformly cheap – it comes as a surprise to see that pasta and schnitty dishes cost up to $29 and a 13-inch pizza can set you back as much as $35. But choose wisely and you’ll eat well for a song (such as “mum” specials on Mondays).
I opt for the penne puttanesca and my friend satisfies a hankering for a spaghetti carbonara. They arrive in minutes. And they look great: perfectly dressed in big white bowls. But we sit and stare at the dishes because we have no cutlery.
After wrongly presuming a waiter would be coming back our way with silverware we make our own arrangements and take cutlery from a neighbouring table (perhaps this game of pass the flatware goes on all night!).
Forks in hands we dive in to the deep bowls and we’re impressed. They’re fresh, generous with ingredients.
My dish includes a healthy handful of capers and the sugo is spot on.
The chefs in the busy open kitchen know what they’re doing and plainly love doing it.
The carbonara avoids gluginess and, again, it’s generous with ingredients and topped with proper fresh parmesan.
The dishes leave little space for dessert, but the Death by Chocolate dessert pizza has caught our eye.
The coffees arrive before dessert. Vittoria. Well made.
The staff here are mostly Italian and there’s a sense that getting pasta and coffee right is second nature.
We wait an age for the dessert to come out but when it arrives we understand why. The chocolate dessert pizza is a 3D ice cream, cream, chocolate and strawberry edible sculpture.
We stare in awe at it – then we stare some more, because somehow it’s happened again. The waiter has walked off without giving us cutlery. We entertain ourselves by eating with our coffee spoons. The staff don’t notice.
It’s a pity because food this good deserves a bit more love – and cutlery.
Cafe Brunelli
WHERE: 187 Rundle St, city, 8223 2221, cafebrunelli.com.au
OWNER: Raj Patel
CHEF: Matt Lawson
FOOD: Italian/comfort
PRICE: $15.90-$34.90
DRINKS: Wine, spirits, softies, properly made coffee
OPEN: 24/7, 365 days a year (cleaning is done around 6.30am)
ATMOSPHERE: Relaxed
CROWD: Students through to 50-somethings
TRY: The pasta
TIP: Mondays and Wednesdays offer specials – so cheap eating gets even cheaper
SCORE: 6.5
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