Top End coffee connoisseurs spoiled for choice this Dry Season

There’s plenty of new choices for Top End coffee connoisseurs this Dry Season. Read what’s new.

PERCOLATED

Suzanna More at Percolated on Bishop Street, Woolner. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Suzanne Moore had originally planned to bake and sell doughnuts with a friend from their specially fitted-out van, before an unexpected change saw her open Percolated instead.

Not long before they were due to launch, Suzanne’s business and baking partner had to move south leaving her to hastily reconfigure the van into a one-person operation.

Instead of doughnuts, Suzanne has been at 3 Bishop Street in Woolner every weekday at dawn selling coffees and breakfasts to workers, residents and parents dropping-off at a nearby childcare centre.

“We’ve built up a wide-range of customers with the coffees and breakfasts and we do the best hot chocolate in Darwin,” she said. As well as D-Town coffee, she also sells Brim, a cold brew brand targeting younger coffee drinkers.

Open from 6am to midday weekdays, Suzanne has hired a barista and from July intends to open on Saturday mornings from 7am until noon.

“There’s plenty of room in the little TARDIS for another person,” she said.

“I’ve also been doing a bit of customer research among the regulars to see what they would like if we opened for lunch,” she said.

“I get the feeling it would be the healthier foods like salads and wraps. The young tradies go for the healthier foods and not the bacon and egg sandwiches.”

Suzanne said her passion for coffee comes from her previous life in Melbourne. “I came to Darwin during Covid and then wondered why I’d ever go back to Melbourne,” she said.

MAP MAP CAFE

Neil and the team at Map Map coffee shop. Picture: Stephanie Hanlon.

At 71 Smith Street adjoining the National Australia Bank building, Map Map was born in March when Darwinite Neil Dang took over management of the downtown coffee shop and lunch bar.

Open from 7am until 2pm weekdays and from 8am to 1pm on Saturday, Map Map has a selection of breakfast and lunch lines that make it suitable for everyday dining for everyone from hungry CBD workers to tourists in Darwin.

Neil’s family has a history in hospo in Melbourne and Darwin, with Neil’s mum also owning BBQ Lady Vietnamese cafe in Cavenagh Street and a market van.

Map Map diners have no shortage of choice. Tuck into a delicious bacon and egg cooked breakfast before work, then chow down a Vietnamese banh mi for lunch. They serve Grinders coffee, cold brew and hot chocolates.

Neil is cagey about the story behind the cafe name, saying only that it started as a joke about his weight.

“Map Map started off as a joke about me, and the name stuck,” he said.

ON COUNTRY CLUB

House of Darwin On Country Club at Lyons Cottage, Darwin. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

From its workspace at Lyons Cottage on Darwin’s Esplanade, House of Darwin has opened the On Country Club, a coffee house and cafe which will be a magnet for lunchtime diners during the Dry Season.

House of Darwin occupied Lyons Cottage late last year to run its fashion operation after moving from Coconut Grove, with founder Shaun Edwards keen to get the best out of the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT-owned space.

The office is separate from House of Darwin’s Knuckey Street shop that sells the popular Darwin-brand’s clothing lines,

“I wanted to make a space to bring people together,” Shaun said. “I love Darwin, I’m from Darwin and we’re lucky enough to be a tenant at Lyons Cottage so we wanted to activate the space and bring people together. Hopefully that’s what we’ll do.”

Previously home to Aboriginal Bush Traders before being renovated by MAGNT during Covid, Lyons Cottage was built in the mid-1920s as Darwin’s telegraph station out of mostly Territory-sourced materials.

“It survived Cyclone Tracy and World War Two bombings and is one of the last colonial buildings here,” he said. “I want to see old Darwin stories and old Territory history come to life, and hopefully House of Darwin will play a small role in doing that through this building.”

As well as that, it’s a new workspace for HoD’s 10 employees.

“This gives us a chance to grow our operation, bring on staff and offer them a good place to work from,” Shaun said.