Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Bread & Jam for Frances


For a damn fine toastie


1/701 Glenferrie Rd*, Hawthorn

*Note about the address: B&JFF is actually located off Glenferrie Rd on Linda Cr (as I discovered after traipsing up and down Glenferrie Rd trying to find the place).

Bread & Jam For Frances on Urbanspoon

Books visible from Readings add to the charm
This is the sister cafe of Dench Bakers, both cafes sourcing their fresh-baked bread from the owner's Abbottsford bakery.

Although the address is misleading, it's a lovely location – off the busy main road, nestled behind Readings bookstore. As well as the main entrance via Linda Cr, you can enter through the back of Readings, and the books visible through the partition wall lend the place an erudite charm. A woman sharing the communal table with me had just bought a novel and was settling in for a cosy read with a coffee and bite to eat – a semi-regular pastime, she said. An ideal way to spend an afternoon, in my book.

Cheese toastie with style
   

My coffee was good and expertly poured, as it had been at Dench (like the bread, the coffee also comes from Abbottsford, via Veneziano Coffee Roasters). Food-wise, I clocked the specials board only after I'd ordered and immediately wished I'd gone for a '1/2 + 1/2' – half soup, half cheese & tomato toastie; fab idea for the coming winter. Menu regrets were short-lived, though, as my seeded bread toastie arrived, filled with Gruyère cheese and fig and plum chutney, served with a salad of rocket, walnut and pear. Nom nom! I can't begin to tell you how delicious that toastie was. (Full disclosure: I was ravenous, having walked up an appetite looking for the place, but gee it was good.) The molten Gruyère and sweet chutney combo was comfort-tastic; the toasted, seeded bread thick and substantial; and the fresh, invigorating salad made it a complete and satisfying lunch.

Frances can have her bread and jam. Bread & Gruyère for Ernie!


Toastie was so good I've renamed the place