TasWeekend: Bear With Me in Soho has substance and style
SOMETIMES you are presented with a dish that simply looks too good to eat. That’s exactly what happened on a visit to Soho’s hottest new cafe.
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SOMETIMES you are presented with a dish that simply looks too good to eat. That’s exactly what happened on a visit to Soho’s hottest new cafe.
Perfectly round and light, Bear With Me’s hotcake is topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries and sprinkled with chopped pistachio nuts and dehydrated raspberries. It’s drizzled, not drowned, with maple syrup and topped with a creamy quenelle of whipped lemon ricotta.
And, yes, I do manage to tuck in after my initial moment of awe and it tastes as good as it looks.
Opening a little over six weeks ago, Bear With Me is the latest enterprise of Alicia Liu and Viv Xiao — who many coffee-lovers will recognise from Vilicia cafe on the corner of Murray and Collins streets in the CBD.
Together, with former Melbourne chef Lachlan Fletcher, whose CV includes a stint at Chin Chin, they are offering an Asian-accented breakfast and brunch menu that also has traditional favourites such as pastries from Imago, an egg and bacon brioche, and smashed avo.
Done out in cool shades of grey with plenty of timber touches and potted plants, the 50-seat eatery on the upper reaches of Macquarie St bears no resemblance to its whitebread roots as Mondo’s bakery many moons ago.
Even the cutlery is funky — it’s black.
The seating options are many and varied: high tables to one side; banquette seating with timber tables; a breakfast bar along the front window; a large communal table just inside the front door; and, at the rear, a lounge area with views out to the ever-changing moods of kunanyi/Mt Wellington.
We venture down the hill from West Hobart for a bear hunt on a rainy/windy/sunny Sunday afternoon, with just days remaining of winter. Spring blossoms line the Cascade Rivulet track.
Crossing the bridge into Wynyard St, I see the new Giameos residential complex known as Tannery Row is fast taking shape.
Soon, 24 smart new townhouses will occupy what was once one of Hobart’s worst industrial eyesores. Trading since the 1930s, the tannery closed in 2008 because local leather production was no longer viable when Blundstone booted its factory offshore.
The pervasive smell that emanated from the site when it was operating is fortunately just a memory.
The residential revival will no doubt bring big benefits to the new cafe, just a stone’s throw away, which already appears to be doing very nicely. With little room at the inn, a bespectacled waitress manages to squeeze us in on the corner of the communal table.
I go straight for the caramelised pork belly, which is sweet, sticky and covered in crunchy crushed peanuts. The accompanying salad, which includes green apple, mint, coriander, lemongrass and a classic salty-sweet-sour nam jim dressing, provides light relief to what could be a heavy dish. The addition of cured flathead is surprising but really works well. I also sip a sparkling iced tea through a metal straw.
My beloved allows me to nibble on his mushroom omelette, drizzled with hot and spicy sriracha sauce, salty oyster sauce and sprinkled with dashi furikake – a Japanese seasoning that seems to be popping up on quite a few menus across town.
Keen to explore the menu further, we return a few days later for a much quieter Wednesday lunch for that hot cake and a croissant crammed with ham, Emmental cheese and bechamel.
The new Bear on the block will no doubt provide stiff competition for enduring Macquarie St favourite Ginger Brown, which has just announced its sister cafe, the fledgling vegetarian Honey Brown, is no more.
In a Facebook post at the end of August, the Honey Brown crew shared the sad news while thanking customers for their support over the past year: “But we have some exciting news to share. Our good friends at Belles will be taking over the space and bringing their delicious burgers, craft beers and more to Soho.”
Bears, burgers and flash new digs rapidly rising by the rivulet … Soho is so hot right now.
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