Best of the Gold Coast: Where is the best breakfast on the Coast 2019?
Hot toast, Gold Coast, you sure do love a good breakfast. After counting thousands of votes the results are in, and Amber Macpherson can reveal the top 10 cafes that serve the best of the brunch. SEE THE FULL LIST
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Hot toast, Gold Coast, you sure do love a good breakfast. After counting thousands of votes the results are in, and Amber Macpherson can reveal the top 10 cafes that serve the best of the brunch.
1. Cardamom Pod Brickworks Southport
Colour, creativity and cruelty-free clearly mean a lot to Gold Coasters on the hunt for a great breakfast, and Cardamom Pod delivers these elements in spades … or spoons. For the second year in a row, the plant-based cafe has taken out top spot in best breakfast on the Gold Coast with its enchanting range of sweet and savoury brunch dishes.
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“We try to add pizzazz to each and every dish that comes out, turning it into a work of art,” owner Sean Pinnell says. “We are also really trying to showcase plant based food and how it can be not just a healthy alternative but the main event.”
The most popular breakfast dish is the double choc vegan waffles. “It’s got so many contrasting elements like the crunchy waffles, the melty scrumptious ice cream, the real cacao chocolate sauce,” Sean says.
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“The whole thing is a melt in your mouth treat. Art on a plate.” Sean says many a delicious bowl or plate has converted carnivores into eating green for their first meal of the day. “The best part of serving plant based food is the happiness it brings to the faces of the diners and the pay off is them showing their appreciation.
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We particularly love when perceptions of those who were sceptical about eating a vegan meal are completely changed and they come and congratulate us. Our partner in crime, Keshava Reciuga, is a great chef and co-owner at Brickworks.”
2. Noego Coffee Co, Ormeau
This new brunch spot in the north promises breakfast food exactly as name suggests — with no pretension. “Noego, it’s just a play on words — no ego by name, no ego by nature,” owner Daniel Salter says.
“The basis of our food is respect, awareness and love.” Noego started out as a mobile coffee roasting business at a Miami market, owned by Dan and his wife Beverley Hunt, before opening in a warehouse in Ormeau and employing Bel Geary as chef. “We do big portions, so fresh and so clean. It’s not all organic, but we still make sure it’s premium quality.”
Some popular items include the vegan big brekky with smoky tofu, garlic mushrooms, greens and house made turmeric cashew sauce, and the kipfler smash with poached eggs, bacon and kipfler, turmeric and kale salad.
3. Terrarium, Oxenford
Terrarium is a botanical utopia tucked away in a corner of the Maudsland Shopping Centre. With tall glass windows and hanging plants, the green house ambience encourages expectations of a garden fresh breakfast.
And the expectations are more than met — Terrarium’s food is organic, delicious and nutritious while catering to gluten and cruelty-free diets. A popular stand out meal is the French toast with house made honeycomb butter and Canadian maple syrup with bacon, banana or both. Diners also have the option to load up on sides with their dishes including hollandaise, beetroot relish, homemade hash browns and Persian feta for the ultimate build-your-own breakfast.
4. Mr Brown’s Tuckshop, Labrador
This Labrador cafe ain’t no schoolyard canteen — the flavours and execution are real world, fusing Asian influences with European staples. “We try and not just be bacon and eggs, there’s a variety of food to choose from,” co-owner Chee Ling Yap says.
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“The newest one (dish) is a Korean fried chicken waffle, with gochujang, a Korean chilli paste. You get that sweet, salty and a little bit spicy flavour. When you eat it, you want to eat a little bit more, a little bit more.” Chee says profiling the egg chiffon dish in last year’s best breakfast on the Gold Coast list helped it to become a menu mainstay. “The egg chiffon Hong Kong style fried rice has been really popular.”
5. Frigg Cafe Labrador
Home style breakfast classics is what you get at Frigg Cafe in Labrador. “We’re not chefs that put flowers on stuff,” co-owner Toula Scott says. “We’re a bit of Nigella mixed in with a bit of Jamie Oliver. We’re rustic home cooks.” Everything is made to order at Frigg Cafe using superior standard ingredients.
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“Our Frigg soldiers is boiled eggs, dipping toast and bacon. That’s one of the things people come in for. The other things they come in for is our eggs benny (benedict) — the customers say ‘that’s the best eggs benny I’ve ever had’. We only use ham off the bone and hickory smoked bacon.”
6. Castaway, Jacobs Well
A quaint, relaxed cafe in seaside town Jacobs Well, Castaway Cafe puts a unique touch on classic breakfast fare. “We’re certainly a little bit different from the norm,” owner Rachel Lawton says. “We do your old school classics but with a twist.
Our green eggs and ham is like an eggs benedict but instead of doing the hollandaise sauce I do an avocado sauce. We do sweet potato waffles, they’re gluten free, dairy free, refined sugar free. That’s our treat meal but it’s still fairly healthy.” Rachel has been running the business for four years as well as cooking the meals that are in high demand. “I was just going through the menu to see if I could shorten it but I couldn’t really take anything off, most of the dishes are so well-loved.”
7. Cafe Alfons, Chevron Island
Cafe Alfons is owned and operated by husband and wife team Jonathan and Anja Ede who say it’s a hidden gem in Surfers Paradise.
“We fly under the radar,” Jonathan says. “You’ve got to do great food and coffee, and you have to do that all day long, and that’s what’s allowed us to be there for eight years. One of our standouts is a smoked salmon breakfast salad. It brings freshness and heat with spinach, edamame, quinoa and broccolini. On the flip side, we do a spiced lamb and potato rosti with tomato salsa. It’s very rarely seen on a breakfast menu but it’s incredibly popular.”
8. Cafe Tahbella, Oxenford
This Oxenford haunt regularly makes our best breakfast list, and it’s not just because the morning meals are top quality. The cafe is super family-friendly and affordable, offering a kids eat free deal on Sundays.
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“Our demographic is families, we’re looking at making sure you can come here and have affordable dining,” co-owner Rodney Marsh says. “Our dearest thing on our breakfast menu is $16.50. We do really nice food, paleo, gluten free, vegetarian. Any dietary need or request, we’ll do it, absolutely.” Rodney says the breakfast winners are the avocado and potato rosti with two poached eggs and bacon, and the famous $10 bacon and eggs deal with a tea or coffee included.
9. Hot Shott, Main Beach
What the people want, they get at Hot Shott, a trendy Tedder Avenue brunch spot that listens to its customers demands. “We do a different special every weekend. If it turns out to be really popular, it goes on our menu,” co-owner Jenna Finch says. “Our sweet corn fritters, we ran it as a special and the feedback was through the roof, so it took the place of the gnocchi off the brunch menu.”
Jenna says the style of food, developed by chef Kellie Rolfe, is “relaxed but playful”, with popular items including the all hashed up dish with house-made potato cakes, poached eggs and hollandaise, and the smokin’ rainbow trout with smashed avo, cherry tomatoes, red onion, dukkha and feta on sourdough.
10. Cafe All Sorts, Kirra Beach
When it comes to this year’s best breakfast spots, it seems the north rules. So credit is due to Cafe All Sorts, the only southern cafe that made the list, and they did it in three months. “The first of November we opened — that is exciting,” co-owner Cameron Shield gushes.
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With business partner Katrina Barlow behind the tools, the duo have created an enticing menu boasting lots of locally-sourced produce. “It’s just wholesome, honest, fresh food,” Katrina says. “Apart from your staples you get everywhere, our convent egg on potato hashcake is very popular, so is our Byron Bay haloumi rosti stack. And the vegan sweet potato fritters with cashew dill sauce just walk out the door.”
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