Bills (Sydney)

Owned by prominent Sydney chef, Bill Granger, it’s seen as one of  ’the places to go’ in the Sydney cafe scene. We went there on a chilly but brilliantly fine winter’s morning, and immediately made ourselves comfortable at a cosy table in the sun. The fit-out at Bills is impeccable – polished wooden floors, a large central wooden communal table surrounded by smaller 2- and 4-seater tables, with a view of a [partially] exposed kitchen, with the whole scene dominated by a beautiful, huge wine list blackboard.

The breakfast menu, whilst not extensive, included a number of enticing items, including Homemade toasted coconut bread, Eggs or toast [as the base] with a choice of Fresh Tomato [$3.60], Roast tomato/mushrooms/aged cheddar/fresh ricotta [$3.80] or avocado [$3.90], bacon  [$4.50] or Gravlax [salmon] extra at $5.70, and a couple of the ‘Bills classics’ including Scrambled organic eggs with sourdough toast [$12.80] and Ricotta hotcakes, fresh banana and honeycomb butter [$16.60].

Lib went for the Sweet corn fritters, roast tomato, spinach and bacon [$17.50], which was a delicious blend of chewy and savoury, all that sweet corn fritters should be. I was feeling conservative and decided on the Fresh seasonal fruit bowl with honey & yoghurt – simple, but presumably something that a cafe of this standard should do beautifully. And in fact, the presentation was beautiful, with the honey and yoghurt served delicately in a small bowl at the side. However, the content was a bit of a letdown – the grapes, slices of melon & pear and a few blueberries were fine, but the chunks of pineapple were extremely sour. It may seem like a small thing, but I found this surprising in a cafe of this calibre, where you would expect the ingredients to be of a consistently high standard. Overall, the food was good, but not out of this world and the coffee [Vittoria] was made reasonably well. Add to this, slightly ‘sniffy’ service and a surprising wait for our meals to come, and you get an above average – without being exceptional – result.

Reviewed August ’08 [AF]

Bills
433 Liverpool Street
Darlinghurst NSW
Tel: (02) 9360 9631

Tags: barista, Bills restaurant, cafes, cafes australia, coffee, espresso, espresso coffee, Sydney cafes, Sydney restaurants

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Cafe Reviews, Sydney cafes & restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.