NewsBite

Advertisement

Elster

This cafe is a finalist in the best all-rounder category in Good Food’s Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025.

Elster’s moody and polished interior.
1 / 6Elster’s moody and polished interior.Eddie Jim
Anchovy toast with stracciatella, wood-fired peppers, shaved
tomato, pickled shallots and soft-boiled egg.
2 / 6Anchovy toast with stracciatella, wood-fired peppers, shaved tomato, pickled shallots and soft-boiled egg.Eddie Jim
Steak frites with bearnaise.
3 / 6Steak frites with bearnaise.Eddie Jim
Fried chicken sandwich.
4 / 6Fried chicken sandwich.Eddie Jim
Tuna salad.
5 / 6Tuna salad.Eddie Jim
Broccoli salad with (optional) cured salmon.
6 / 6Broccoli salad with (optional) cured salmon.Eddie Jim

Cafe$

Carefully walking the line between cafe and restaurant is what Elster does best. It’s a cafe insofar as you can have a flat white and a granola or chicken sandwich. But it’s a restaurant in that your cereal comes with bruleed pink grapefruit, and your sandwich layers crumbed buttermilk-brined chook and oozy dill tartare between squishy milk bread.

Good to know: A solid booze menu – from bloody Marys to TarraWarra chardonnay – rounds out the offer.

Continue this series

Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025: All-rounders
Up next
Inside Morning Market in Fitzroy.

Morning Market

This cafe is a finalist in the best all-rounder category in Good Food’s Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025.

Cheesy beef sando with mint in the mince.

Four Kilo Fish

This cafe is a finalist in the best all-rounder category in Good Food’s Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025.

Previous
Pancake stack with whipped cream and bacon.

JollyGood Diner

This cafe is a finalist in the best all-rounder category in Good Food’s Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025.

See all stories

Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.

Sign up

From our partners

Advertisement
Advertisement

Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/goodfood/melbourne-eating-out/elster-20250520-p5m0t2.html