Breakfast at Angus & Bon

Breakfast at Angus & Bon

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Posted 2019-04-16 by Nadine Cresswell-Myattfollow


Angus & Bon is a restaurant rather than a cafe and offers standout Melbourne breakfasts. I had read the menu online before leaving home and initially, it seemed like standard fare such as big breakfasts, bacon sandwiches and hot cakes.

But don't for one moment let the simple menu names deceive you, as Angus & Bon serve anything but ordinary breakfasts.

Why this place is different.

Brunching out in Melbourne has become almost mandatory weekend pastime, so you can compare notes with your workmates on Monday morning about new places to try.

The cafes that lure us in, and therefore have the longest queues stack smashed avo on toast into mountainous peaks, turn semi-healthy pancakes into dessert follies with tufts of fairy floss and syrupy fruits or decorate your plate with so many flowers, you feel like you've munched through a flower bed.

I am as guilty as the next person of feeding the Insta and showing off dishes like this, as often visually they are works of art.

But they are also often all show with no substance.

Now for Angus & Bon and why the place and the breakfasts are different from what you have been eating and snapping elsewhere.

The Area

Firstly this is an iconic Melbourne area to eat out at. Greville Street is Melbourne's original hipster hangout. And while it's been in and out of fashion at the moment, it's right up there along with the strings of catenary lights recently installed by Stonnington Council to make the area even more appealing.



There is a bohemian street vibe with bands playing on the pavement outside Greville Records and a fascinating shopping strip with hipster hairdressing salons and quaint cafes.



Greville Street is also where the legendary AC/DC played one of its first Melbourne shows in January 1975. Hence the name Angus & Bon, as the restaurant is named after the band's guitarist Angus Young, and late lead singer Bon Scott.

The Space



We marched into a lavish space with high ceilings and plenty of room to breathe compared to some of the squashy surrounding breakfast places that we passed. Angus & Bon is located in a historic 1928 post office which has been recalibrated to retain a sense of local history but also to create a sophisticated New York 1940s vibe.

There is the Rat Pack moodiness of the original dark timber panelling, exposed brick, marble, wrought iron and olive green leather booths and banquettes.



You can also sit at the bar, near the windows or at outside tables under umbrellas where you can soak up the sunshine, but also the street vibes that make this street so famous.

Service

No ordering at the counter here. From the moment we arrived, this was restaurant table service with chances to discuss the menu, large cloth napkins and our drinks regularly topped up even though we were only drinking water. We felt well looked after.

The Food

Angus & Bon is famous for serving chargrilled and wood-fired premium steaks (restaurant quality), so when they decided to launch a breakfast menu, you can almost hear the team nutting out the menu. "What dishes can we serve that aren't being done at every corner cafe? How can we celebrate a melting-pot of flavours from our own varied culinary backgrounds?' I'll bet they even said, "How can we inject restaurant flare into Melbourne's already great breakfast scene?"

The team have English, Irish, Japanese and Canadian backgrounds, so they decided to put a contemporary spin on some of their childhood favourite breakfasts dishes.

Chef de Partie, Skyler Milner's favourite memories of breakfast were of cold Canadian mornings in New Brunswick and his grandma's hot flapjacks with Canadian maple syrup poured over the top. So he has recreated this winter warmer, but with an Australian spin using local bananas, and baking the mixture using a method more commonly used in cake making. His creation is topped with mascarpone and walnuts.



For Senior Grill Chef, Kei Umezaki, it was his fond memories of his upbringing living by the sea in Kyoto, Japan, eating traditional regional food.

Kei's contribution is a modern take on an old family favourite, the breakfast mackerel, cured in-house and torched to order with house-made white rice miso glaze. He accompanies the fish with a sharp, light salad of apple, radicchio and fennel drizzled in yuzu for a taste of modern Japan on a plate.



I think his influence is also probably in the fabulous avocado dish, far different than any avocado dish I have had in Melbourne to date.

It is laced with yuzu marmalade, thin white circles of radish and topped with and decorative chopped buds of red chilli and pistachio nuts.

It was such a remarkable combination that I had to look up more information on yuzu. Apparently, the ancient citrus fruit resembles a grapefruit but with mandarin/lime overtones and while originating in Ancient China, it is often used in Japanese and Korean sauces. I am so glad the waitress recommended we try this dish. And if you are after a completely different take on a breakfast avocado dish then you just found it.



Resident Yorkshireman, Steve Donald wanted to recreate a favourite dish of ham hock beans, haricot beans, shredded ham hock, tangy tomato and capsicum sauce and Worcestershire sauce, landing on fresh toast, with a poached egg perched on top. When the egg is pierced rivulets of yellow run down the hillside of tomato red.



Then there's the bacon sandwich. Sounds simple but simple it is not. The A&B team wanted to take the classic bacon sandwich and elevate it to a new level.

So streaky bacon is baked until perfectly crispy, meanwhile deliciously moist pork loin bacon simmers away for three hours in pork stock. These contrasting meats are then sandwiched between two slices of the softest, freshest white bread sourced locally from the artisan bread maker Q Le Baker. Best eaten by hand and dipped into HP sauce, this is a bacon sanger like no other.



We didn't get to try this sandwich, but some of the bacon and the ham hock beans came on the full breakfast plate and both were delectable. The big breakfast came with house-made traditional black pudding, Cumberland sausages, confit duck fat potato hash brown (so good) and more of that locally baked country loaf from Q Le Baker.



The kitchen must make good use of their woodfired grill to toast this moreish artisan bread as you can see, the chargrilled lines seared across the slices. They seemed brushed with excellent quality olive oil.

I also had a slice with my main dish, which was simply named coddled egg. This is head chef, Declan Carroll's (ex Rockpool, Press Club and Bistro Guillaume) creation. His mantra for this dish is: "Don't scare the eggs". As you can see from Caroll's version of this egg dish it looks almost like a fondue (although not as thick) and the result is a silky lake that you erupt by dunking your bread into.



Apparently, if you speed up the cooking process you are left with scrambled eggs. So the dish takes immense patience. Eggs and butter are nursed over heat for two and a half hours so the proteins break down, and you are rewarded with this remarkable texture. Tendrils of wild mushrooms are swirled on the surface and I swear it is the most beautiful and unique breakfast dishes you will ever taste.

This is just a few of the dishes on the menu. There are plenty of others such as Benedict croquette with spinach puree and hollandaise and in house made coconut granola and Greek yoghurt and decorated with seasonal fruits. For the full menu, click here.

Drinks

Coffee, as you might expect, was excellent. But it was the juices that caught my eye. Who could resist house-made juices created with selected fruits and vegetables, so they are naturally bright green, purple and orange?

The green, which I ordered, was a mixture of coconut, spinach, lemon, apple and kale. The bright purple was created with apple, beetroot, carrot celery and ginger, while the orange was carrot, apple and ginger.

After tasting, my son who had joined me for breakfast thought that juicing if it tasted this fine must be a new life option.

While we didn't partake, you can also avail yourself of bottomless brunch offerings from 1pm-3pm. When you order a dish from the lunch menu you can order a bottomless supply of Mimosa, Bellini, Aperol spritz, Bloody Marys, Colonial beer and cider (cost $39).

Since launching in 2018, Prahran's Angus & Bon has become a popular hotspot for quality steak, delicious wood-fired creations and its stylish surrounds located in the area's The new diverse and delicious breakfast menu will now help satisfy cravings from morning until night.



The Prices

Surprisingly good value given you are definitely getting restaurant service and superior cuisine. The amazing avocado dish was $16, the miso mackerel ($19), that amazing full breakfast $25 or a smaller version for $19. These are very much the prices you generally pay in almost all inner-city cafes, but here you are getting substance, quality and a memorable weekend breakfast to tell everyone about on Monday morning.



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#food_wine
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#prahran
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184954 - 2023-06-16 02:29:35

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