Industry Beans Chadstone review: Cocktails, in-house roastery dazzle at shopping centre cafe

Top-notch coffee, artful brunches and cocktails shaken up any time of the day — there’s a lot of love about Chadstone’s new cafe.

Kara Irving

3 min read

July 9, 2021 - 11:00AM

Food

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A cheeseburger and chocolate thickshake.

As a child and teenager, this was reward enough after a torturous day of clothes shopping. Growing up in the 90s and 00s, deep fried eats, burgers and sangas were as good as it got in food court at lunchtime.

Enter Chadstone — the shopping centre behemoth which over time has upped its culinary game to earn a reputation for its food, as much as fashion.

Today it’s the place where you can eat, drink and do almost anything — get a hot stone massage, buy an electric car, visit a Lego playground — and since April has been home to Fitzroy icon Industry Beans.

On looks alone, this Chadstone flagship is mighty impressive.

A spacious, modern fit-out that’s slightly clinical, with white walls and counter tops, floor to ceiling glass windows and a polished concrete floor, if not for the lush indoor greenery.

A sparkly street-front entrance near Tiffany and Co allows access outside shopping o’clock, meaning you can sip mimosas or espresso martinis pre or post your Tour de Chadstone.

Industry Beans Chadstone’s strongest flex is its on-site coffee roastery, which churns through 150kg of beans weekly and is used solely for in-store drinks and retail products.

Most of the big players in Melbourne’s coffee scene have an in-house roastery, with Industry Beans launching its first in 2017 at its Fitzroy locale.

Industry Beans roasts its coffee in-house. Picture: Supplied.

It’s this type of gear that sets you apart in the city’s highly competitive coffee industry and you better believe you can taste the difference.

Industry Beans takes mass-caffeination seriously, with the coffee offering as comprehensive as the food.

For milk-based brews, choose either the crowd pleasing Fitzroy Street blend that’s deliciously rich with dark chocolate and tart blackberry notes, or the punchy autumn seasonal awash with Earl Grey and zingy lemon citrus that’ll slap you awake as it charges across your palate. Black coffee drinkers can indulge in three types of batch brew, filtered coffee.

Space-like, bubble tea creations curiously coloured green and brown, with coffee-soaked tapioca pearls bobbing around in the glass, land at many nearby tables and prove a popular choice with families.

The Sous Vide Salmon Garden is a new dish at the Chadstone flagship. Picture: Supplied.

Head Chef Jess Allen (formerly of Industry Beans Fitzroy) is considered with her cooking, ensuring each meal is balanced in both texture and flavour, and also looks the goods.

The sous vide salmon garden ($29), one of the three new Chadstone dishes, does all of this. The Tasmanian-sourced fish is slowly cooked in a water bath, dusted with green tea powder and decorated with saltbush crisps, pickled veg and a puff of wakame seaweed foam.

It’s a wonderfully light, lovely plate of food, which dials up the textures with pops of Yarra Valley salmon roe and raw veg crunch. More seasoning and zing in the pickled daikon would help liven things up, although this is still delicious eating.

Porcini Nest with porcini dusted egg, potato nest, wild mushroom duxelle and kale. Picture: Supplied.

Industry Beans stayer, the porcini nest ($25), is also excellent.

A golden crisp potato rosti is cleverly crafted into a bird’s nest, layered with fried enoki mushroom twigs, and cradles a gooey-centred soft boiled egg.

It’s fun, clever and yum, with those mushrooms adding an incredible umami depth of flavour. This meal alone will have you coming back next week.

I’d imagine this Industry Beans would come alive when the sun goes down, as it’s the only Victorian store with a liquor licence.

Enjoy a glass of vino, beers by the can or cocktails while you snack on the likes of cured kingfish with crispy chilli oil ($19), prawn and barramundi in soft sweet milk buns with jalapeño mayo ($22) and polenta chips ($10) swiped in black garlic aioli.

Industry Beans puts a fashionable foot forward at Chadstone. Picture: Supplied.

There’s even Rustica-baked croissants ($6) to-go, and a glorious peanut butter brownie ($5) that’s fudgey, nutty and too good to share.

Industry Beans’ Chadstone shows just how far we’ve come in the shopping centre food stakes, but also sets a very high standard of what may follow in years to come.

It doesn’t put a fashionable foot wrong with friendly staff, great coffee and artful brunches. Reap the rewards.