Sunday, September 5, 2010

Coffee in Lygon Street

I had another Sunday with little to do, so I jumped in the car and drove without much idea where to go. I turned the radio to Triple M and heard that Carlton were playing footy away to Sydney so I decided to head to Lygon Street. Lygon Street is the centrepiece of the predominantly Italian suburb of Carlton just North of Melbourne CBD. It is a fantastic eating strip with loads of great Italian restaurants, as well as a mix of pubs, cafes, gelateria's and other types of cuisine.

After a bit of a walk up and down the street to check out where was busy and where was not (it was Father's Day after all) I found a place I had never noticed before so decided to give it a try. Seasons Provedore is a cafe full of sweet things on display, mouth watering cakes and chocolates as well as a big sign on the front inviting you to try their pancakes. It is situated on the West side of Lygon Street just south of Grattan Street, tucked neatly between the ultra popular Gelatissimo ice cream parlour, and the ultra expensive Borsari Restaurant. You have your choice of breakfast's and lunches but it's the sweets that are most tempting and I couldn't resist the apple crumble with my long black.

The crumble was generously spiced with cinnamon and interestingly finished with oats and pistacchio's, and the whole thing worked beautifully. The long black had a beautiful flavour, sort of caramel and without a bitterness to it. At moments I was unsure of the consistency of the coffee, as it seemed a bit thin, but it must have been my imagination as it held it's body to the end.

Like many people, I love going to Lygon Street to dine, talk, watch the people and cars and I would happily go back to Seasons Provedore :)

4 comments:

  1. Hey Carl,

    Ever try Pizza-al-metro (also called Da Salvatore.. also called la cacciatora [the hunter!]) a block off Lygon St on Grattan/Drummond?

    I used to go there as a kid when it was on Lygon St proper, I remember watching Robi Baggio sky his penalty in the '94 world cup final over a metre of margherita. (They don't do round pizza's, they do them by length!)

    Anyhow- they sold up and moved around the corner. The coffee is rank but the margherita is the best I've had out of Italy. Prices are ok... 15 bucks for half a metre of margherita which is ok value!

    Paul

    ps. Sorry i'm slow in the corr. games- I'm amazingly busy for another week then fine.

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  2. You may be interested in this ( http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20100803-caffeination-australias-coffee-culture ) although you are probably living it anyway :)

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  3. Thanks signalman, I agree with a lot of the artical, and now have a whole bunch of new cafe's to try out on my travels. The only problem here in Melbourne, is that the choice of cafe is too big and can get a bit overwhelming. I recently found out that Melbourne has the highest density of cafe's per square metre of any city in the World.

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  4. In the world ?! Pretty amazing.
    I suspect that Amsterdam has the same statistic for it's own "coffeeshops" but they are a touch different in what they sell :)

    I used to live in a small town in the UK that had something like 12 or 15 pubs on its main street about 3/4 mile long. That was in the 80's and the thing to do was attempt a pint in every pub.
    Last time I was there it was reduced to 5 or 6, I think. The others gone as housing. Maybe for the better, but why is it that the 'wrong pubs' close ?

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