Earl Canteen
| Where | 500 Bourke St (access via Little Bourke), City, 3000—View map |
Contact | 03 9600 1995 |
Website | www.earlcanteen.com.au |
Open | Breakfast Monday to Friday 7:30 am to 5:00 pm |
Payment | EFTPOS, Visa, Mastercard, Diners, AMEX |
Diet | Vegan, Soy, Gluten free, Caters to special diets |
Seating | Inside and outside |
Kids | Welcome |
Pets | Unwelcome |
Good design - Earl Canteen's elegant and beautiful solution to the problem of the casual corporate eatery
Ellie Parker 2 May 2011
It's no coincidence Earl Canteen is the brainchild of a food stylist. This canteen is one good looking kid. Tucked under Movida Terraza, but by no means overshadowed, Earl benefits from morning sunshine, a chirpy fit-out by Byron George and an overwhelming focus on the simple beauty of produce. Stacks of mottled grey Queensland Blue pumpkins beam from bench tops. Bundles of ruby red rhubarb take stock on shelves. The produce is there for show, but will no doubt end up in Jackie Middleton's pot sooner or later. Middleton is the stylist, owner, cook and all-round food lover who has blinked once and created a magic world with this city eatery, a world with a refreshing food-oriented aesthetic.
Inspired by informal staff snacks made by hungry chefs between shifts in Melbourne's finest diners, Middleton has morphed the principles of restaurant quality ingredients + simple snack into a product. She now provides Melbourne city folk with restaurant quality sandwiches, the most popular of which is the Otway pork belly number. But Earl's not just about the sambo. Breakfast is equally praise-worthy.
A simple start to the day comes in the form of a freshly baked friand, dimpled with a dot of seasonal fruit compote (currently banana and lime jam with fresh coconut). Crushed avocado and local ricotta, sourced from Carlton's That's Amore, is served on chunky grain toast, letting the ingredients speak for themselves. Thick cut Istra bacon from the Macedon Ranges morphs with melted provolone in a golden toastie, creating murmurs of enthusiasm. Warm vanilla scented porridge with poached fruit is comfort in a bowl. The boccadillo-style breakfast baguette boasts two fried eggs, tomato jam and garden rocket - a must for those who've got a thumping morning after problem. The house-made crumpets are divine, a labour of love for Middleton who lets the batter rise for 2 hours, before cooking the little darlings for 20 minutes. Served with house-made citrus curd, they're bang for your buck at $4.50. All of these breakfast items do a dashing trade with the suits, as they beeline in and out for their daily fix.
Earl's fit-out is a restrained little white box, filled with pretty green-legged stools (designed for Earl by Ware House 8), smart aprons and big smiles. There are buckets of love coming from the kitchen department and you can taste the difference with every mouthful. Somehow this results in a nice crowd of regulars, who are similarly minded in their outlook on life.
Earl Canteen is an example of the non-random process of natural selection, proof that masterful design and planning does indeed result in a better sandwich, a better coffee and somehow a better clientele. Good food for good people.