By Jacqui Taffel
The over-sized letters sitting on the front counter spell out "Bon Apetit", an indication of Middle Head Cafe's strong French accent.
Its owners are French – Christelle who runs the show out front, and husband Dany in the kitchen. On our way to our table outside on the covered veranda, we pass a luscious, bronzed tarte tatin and make a mental note for later.
Christelle and Dany, owners of Middle Head cafe. Credit: Edwina Pickles
Dany's quiches are the speciality here, and the rest of the menu continues the accent – from the ham, cheese and tomato baguette, to the Kir house cocktail with sauvignon and creme de cassis. There's also the intriguing-sounding Salade Gourmande – scallop, salmon, mussel, capsicum and rillette.
The cafe is not particularly stylish or luxurious, more light and breezy, but it looks out over Middle Head oval with harbour glimpses through the trees past Balmoral Beach to the Spit Bridge. Other tables are occupied by local ladies lunching, and a group in navy fatigues from nearby HMS Penguin.
Prawn and salmon quiche and goat's cheese salad.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Dany's quiches – we try the salmon and prawn and the vegetable – are perfect specimens, with delicate puffed pastry and buttery yellow insides, bursting with their fillings and lightly browned. The mixed salad leaves on the side are springy and perfectly dressed.
The prosciutto and goat's cheese salad is an insouciant assembly of more salad leaves, tomato, ribbons of carrot and prosciutto, guarded by two small baguette towers topped with a round pat of just-melted goat's cheese.
I was hoping to tackle the Salade Gourmande, but it's not available today. Though I'm not much of a Croque Monsieur fan, this has to be the place to give it a whirl. I request the Madame with a fried egg on top, and behold, the combination of soft but crunchy toast topped with melted cheese and runny egg, with ham and creamy bechamel sauce inside, is quite marvellous.
We are supposed to be going for a walk and a swim, but it's hard to leave so we order coffees, a creme brulee and a slice of tarte tatin. The flat white, made with organic Vittoria beans, somehow tastes French – slightly bitter, but not unpleasantly. There's a tea bag in the teapot, but it's Maison de The, so that's OK.
Four forks are delivered so we can share. The creme brulee's paper-thin toffee crust cracks over creamy, not-too-sweet custard, and the classic tart is as good as it looks. We plunge our forks into mounds of buttery, caramelised apple and wafer-thin pastry.
Middle Head Cafe is part of the prime parcel of harbour-front land formerly occupied by the Defence Forces that was returned to the public in 2001; most of the old buildings have been renovated and repurposed since then. This one used to be the guard house, Christelle says. It seems ironic that in Sydney's early colonial days, there was fear of a French invasion, with defensive cannon batteries built on a nearby headland in 1803.
Two centuries on, this small Gallic outpost has won over the locals, their weapons a deft hand with pastry and a strong French accent.
MIDDLE HEAD CAFE
1110 Middle Head Road, Mosman
9960 1239
Daily, 7am-4pm
THE PICKS
Quiches; croque madame; tarte tatin
THE COFFEE
Vittoria
THE LOOK
Bright and breezy with water glimpses
THE VALUE
Good. Quiche with green leaves, $11; omelette with salad or toast, $14
NEARBY
Curious Grace, a fab furniture and homewares shop newly arrived from Melbourne