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Don’t expect standard-issue dishes at Superfreak in Marrickville. The cafe doesn’t trade in bacon and egg rolls or textbook brunch items. “No one’s even asked us for an avo toast,” says co-owner Michael Ico. “It’s been pretty refreshing not having it on.”

Avoiding such staples wasn’t any statement-making move; just the effect of limited space.

Ico has run various cafes since 2011, starting with the Baron in Castle Hill. Superfreak has the smallest floorplan of them all.

So the smashed avo, fried bacon and eggs-and-sides template that typically autofills cafe menus across Sydney? Superfreak opted out of that, because the kitchen is pretty constrained.

The location does have upsides, which attracted Ico and Superfreak co-owner Daniel Harrison to the site initially.

“Dan’s partner [Trisha] actually works at Scout Pilates, next door to where Superfreak is,” says Ico. “And she mentioned to us that they were looking for someone to go in there.”

They could imagine setting up something with a “nourishing” vibe for people fuelling up between stretches and strength-building exercises. With Enmore Park across the road, there’d also be locals after salads, smoothies and sandwiches to go. So the duo launched Superfreak in July.

As someone who last attended a gym during the Obama era, I’m not the target audience for the more health-conscious stuff on the cafe’s menu. The drinks namecheck marine collagen and adaptogens – things I’d usually skip. But the hot chocolate tastes like the real thing (with actual chocolate flakes even): it isn’t a health facsimile front-loaded with medicinal mushrooms and zero sweetness. The spirulina-powered smoothie is a lush coastal blue optimised for Instagram close-ups, but its blend of peanut butter chunks, toasted coconut and honey-charged sweetness is legitimately delicious.

You can thank Trisha Harrison for the drinks list, while Michaela Johansson from Aplenty catering deserves credit for the food menu. Ico gave her this brief: “Healthy but not ‘Bondi healthy’ ” – all delivered with a big warm undertone of nostalgia.

The Superfreak porridge brilliantly summarises her approach. It’s built from oat, rye and buckwheat. “That porridge – without all the fancy grains – was something my dad used to make for us when we were little,” she says. The caterer fondly recalls how the butter would pool into the milk and oats.

She’s stylishly re-created this flashback at Superfreak. Mixed grains are cooked until creamy: they become a landmass banked with poached rhubarb, an oozing sun of cultured butter and caramel-dark swirls of brown sugar all propped in an oat milk moat.

The staff were initially very shy about adding the sugar. “And I was like ‘more, more, more’,” she says.

I’m not a porridge person, but after hearing high-volumed praise for this dish, I tried it. I went from doubter to convert in one spoonful. It’s the joyful pile-on of ingredients (the fruity rhubarb, dark caramel ridges, hints of salt) that make it great.

Ico says the porridge is “covered in brown sugar and butter ... because we didn’t want to get boxed in being the ‘healthy place’.”

That’s Superfreak’s appeal: it has nutritious intentions, but without draining fun or flavour from the menu. The MVP in the protein-rich morning roll of egg and Comte cheese is the shallot-coriander salsa, which evokes Argentinian chimichurri and Hainanese chicken rice. It’s a welcome flex in a sandwich, especially after the pesto we’ve endured for decades. The shallot-coriander salsa livens up the roasted pumpkin salad with coriander cashew cream, too.

You might know Ico and Harrison from their excellent inner west cafes Soulmate and Splash (which they run with Harry Paton and Mitch Jones), but Superfreak has a distinct identity. Nostalgia fuels the pastry counter, which features melting moments (from a recipe Johansson has repeated since her teens) and Bundt cakes by in-house chef June Kim.

The interiors by YSG Studio also feel vintage: the cork flooring evokes Ico’s childhood home, while the shaggy banquette is inspired by Meret Oppenheim’s classic 1930s Surrealist artwork of fur-lined tableware. The vinyl collection underscores the retro decor, alternating from Crowded House 1980s hits, the 1970s soul-funk of Patrice Rushen and the 2020s abrasive post-punk of High Vis.

But Superfreak also has an inviting vision of how we eat now – and how it’s nice to give the bacon and egg rolls and avo toast a break sometimes.