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Melbourne: Sourdough And Coffee Find A New Home At Wild Life Bakery

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wild life bakery melbourne australia

wild life bakery melbourne australia

We’ve said it before but Melbourne has become something of a hotbed of food, coffee, and wine over the years. There are so many specialty coffee shops and boutique cafes that you can find at least one in every neighborhood, and a generation of hospitality professionals who are spending lots of time working for other people before opening their own spaces. These new businesses often become even more niche and focused than the venues that spawned their owners: think niche shops focusing in and limiting their offerings, or very small venues in previously un-catered-to areas. So it’s even more surprising when a venue takes on an ambitious space, choosing to prioritize areas that the owner hasn’t necessarily specialized in.

Take, for example, Wild Life Bakery. Opened in September 2017 by Huw Murdoch, Wild Life found its home in a warehouse in the inner-north Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, with a focus on high-quality bread. Murdoch is a familiar face in Melbourne, having managed Market Lane Coffee’s Therry Street store for six years, with long stints in cafes and restaurants while studying jazz performance at Monash University. Over the years, he began baking sourdough at home and slowly realized that it far outshined the bread he could buy around his local neighborhood of Brunswick.

wild life bakery melbourne australia

Sometimes when a business arises from a business owner’s hobby or passion, they tend to try and take on that role professionally, which doesn’t always work out. While Murdoch did toy with the idea of translating his love of bread into working in the bakery day-to-day, the venue he found ultimately dictated the way the business was structured. “It came down to the size of the site that I found,“ he says. “If I’d found a hole-in-the-wall to sell bread and some coffee out of, I would have thought more about trying to be the baker and to learn on the job a bit. But once I thought hard about the kind of venue it would need to be to work, I realized that I was much more qualified to run the front of house. For new businesses particularly, it’s nice for the locals to actually meet and talk with the owner, which is something that I can do out front but probably couldn’t have done out the back.”

Walking into Wild Life, one is struck by just how large the space is. It’s a huge light-filled warehouse that’s been lovingly transformed by Sarah Trotter of Hearth Studio into a beautifully compartmentalized space encompassing a well-sized kitchen, a dedicated bakery (with large circular peepholes in so that customers can view the magic), and a T-shaped island that houses the bread display and barista station. Light filters in from skylights, while tables and chairs luxuriously spread out in front of the bakery windows and kitchen pass.

wild life bakery melbourne australia

Murdoch outlined his motivations for the business: “My aim was always to make a simple space that focused on sourdough bread, with the hope that eventually I’d find smaller local grain suppliers, and possibly make some positive contribution to supporting farmers growing higher-quality, less commodity-focused products.”

The menu here is (understandably) bread-focused, with a kimchi toastie on the menu from day one, whiles grains sneak their way in in non-bread form via porridges and the like. Murdoch has taken inspiration from folks like SQIRL in Los Angeles, and Tartine in San Francisco (pre-Manufactory). “Bar Tartine, and their philosophy of trying to make everything in-house, is something we think about a lot,” he adds. 

wild life bakery melbourne australia

These inspirations come to light in things like Wild Life’s delicious take on Tartine’s salted rye cookie recipe, or their delectable range of Viennoiseries and sweet treats, but it’s an inspiration that blends beautifully with Murdoch’s choice of a unique menu; you won’t find poached eggs on avocado toast coming out of this kitchen, but you will find one of the best gazpachos you’ll ever have (accompanied by a cheese toastie, of course).

While the bread and food are definitely a huge draw, the beverage offering is expectedly no slouch—with Market Lane Coffee being brewed either through the La Marzocco Linea or as pour-over filter coffee, and a small wine and beer offering rounding out the all-day menu with a focus on approachable minimal-intervention delights from folks like Jamsheed Winery and La Sirene Brewery (thanks to a pre-exisiting liquor license from the building’s previous tenants).

wild life bakery melbourne australia

While Murdoch intends to continue to bring good bread to the Brunswick locals, his non-glutenous goals for the future are equally noble. “I just really want to run a business where everyone is treated and paid well and correctly,“ he says. “It’s kind of ridiculous that I can take any pride in paying all of my staff the award wage, but it’s still pretty rare in Australian hospitality businesses, which is sad. I’m still very much learning how to run a business, so it’s early days, but creating and maintaining a positive work environment and culture is probably my main priority.”

Wild Life Bakery is located at 90 Albert St, Brunswick East VIC 3057. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

The post Melbourne: Sourdough And Coffee Find A New Home At Wild Life Bakery appeared first on Sprudge.


Inside Everyday Coffee’s Maybe Pop-Up Maybe Permanent Melbourne Cafe

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everyday coffee melbourne australia

everyday coffee melbourne australia

What do you get when you cross an exhibition space, a print shop, a work shop, a book shop, and a coffee shop? Well, something that sounds like the set-up for a really terrible joke, but is actually a building filled with creatives and a buzzing coffee shop headed up by Everyday Coffee. Located on the corner of Queensberry Street and Lansdowne Place in the inner-northern suburb of Carlton (a short ten-minute walk from Melbourne’s city center), Everyday Coffee’s latest venue is a small and succinct coffee-shop-inside-a-shop.


In the years since opening their first location on Johnston Street, owners Mark Free and Aaron Maxwell have grown and developed Everyday Coffee in quite an organic way. They now roast their own coffee, have a Midtown store, and founded All Are Welcome with baker Boris Portnoy. Their new space was born out of a conversation with longtime customer Ziga Testen, who at the time was setting up a new studio on the ground floor at Queensberry Street; it’s a partnership between Testen, design studio Public Office, and Perimeter Books.

everyday coffee queensberry australia

Everyday Coffee Owners Mark Free and Aaron Maxwell

The design and feel of the space is comfortable, but quite minimal—wooden bar seating lines the front window, and a coffee workbench sits against the back wall. There’s a communal table, bench seating, and a small book display sitting next to a print workshop, which makes for some fascinating viewing.

Chatting to Free about their approach to design, he explains that Everyday wanted the new space to have an ad-hoc, work in progress feel. “Because it very much is one,” Free says. “The design came a little from us and our collaborators upstairs, and a little from our cabinetry and furniture makers Dale Holden and Adam Ascenzo.”

While it feels a bit wrong (and even a bit cliché) to call the space a “pop-up,” that’s ostensibly what it is for the time being—according to Free they could be here making coffee for a month, a year, or indefinitely.

“Everything is on wheels,” he says. “So we can roll out any time if the going gets tough.”

everyday coffee melbourne australia

For now, Everyday is cranking out espresso drinks with a black powder-coated La Marzocco Linea, and offering delectable pastries from All Are Welcome (and some neatly packaged chocolates from Hunted & Gathered).

“We were conscious that we were setting up between the two big universities,” Free says of the location. “So we made it a space where people can grab a quick takeaway but also meet up or work on a laptop or browse the books.”

everyday coffee melbourne australia

The atmosphere is reminiscent of Everyday’s Johnston Street store, and customers seem to feel at home in the space, setting up their laptops to work on projects and assignments, catching up with friends, or getting their re-usable cups filled before setting off on their way. It’s this approachable feeling that’s made Everyday such a staple within Melbourne’s specialty community—theirs is an ethos of belonging in every new location, with excellent coffee as a delightful extra perk.

Everyday Coffee is located at 225 Queensberry St, Carlton. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

The post Inside Everyday Coffee’s Maybe Pop-Up Maybe Permanent Melbourne Cafe appeared first on Sprudge.

Thoughtful Food & Tasty Coffee Outside Melbourne At Rudimentary In Footscray

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More than seven years ago, I moved from Brisbane to Melbourne to start anew—captivated by the coffee industry, the culture, the opportunities, and the freedom to wear as much dark-colored clothing as I wanted. For those first few years, the range of my living and working largely radiated around the city and the inner-northern suburbs—those hip and happening neighborhoods like Fitzroy and Carlton—if you asked me about anything beyond those bounds back then I’d probably have looked at you blankly, having only ventured outside of my radius to try and find a cheaper second-hand store.

Quite a few years later, with a stint interstate and something hopefully resembling wisdom under my belt, I made the move west, to the suburb of Footscray—a suburb in close proximity to the Port of Melbourne, along a truck transport route, and home to the multicultural buzzing hub of the Footscray market. While the move was largely predicated by the cheaper rent, larger houses, and delicious Vietnamese food there, I happened upon a lot more than I bargained for, including a unique venue dedicated to thoughtful gardening, community, and very importantly great food and coffee, called Rudimentary.

rudimentary footscray australia

Owned by Desmond Huynh and Lieu Trieu, Rudimentary sits on an expansive corner close to the business centre of Footscray: on half the property sits a beautiful garden and outdoor seating area, while a cafe occupies the rest. Upon walking through the gates, it’s immediately clear Rudimentary is a bit different than your typical cafe, with the structure of the building itself, in fact, made from shipping containers.

It’s a novel choice of building material, and a deliberate one at that. The block of land that Rudimentary now stands on had been in Huynh and Trieu’s family for decades, having previously been an overgrown carpark for local businesses. With the appeal of Footscray growing over the years, the family was continually being approached by developers who wanted to acquire the land, but the family had no interest in either selling or developing it themselves for at least another five years—as such, it was offered to Huynh and Trieu, a wholesale seafood operations manager and a pharmacist, respectively, to do with as they wished in the meantime.

Balking at the scope of such a proposition, the pair initially said no, before thinking on it further and deciding to approach it in a different way. Chatting to Huynh, he outlined, “We had five to 10 years [left at] the site, which meant that we had to get creative with construction methods. I studied architecture some years before and didn’t like the waste the industry created, so rather than build something that would be torn down, we felt it appropriate to create something that was more robust and could be relocated when the time came to move on.”


While shipping containers posed a challenge as an unconventional building material, the positives outweighed the negatives: the materials rang true with the historically industrial feel of Footscray, and the cost-effective nature of the material meant that they could transform the entire block of land on a limited budget, as Huynh puts aptly: “The business name—Rudimentary—gave us the framework for the entire project; it allowed us to create a space that was extensive but not expensive.”

Designed in collaboration with local firm RD Architecture, the cafe interior is light and bright, with a long bar housing the open kitchen and espresso bar that faces the cafe, and well-spaced-out seating. A few visible elements of the shipping container are thoughtfully revealed on the interior—without which you’d have no idea that it wasn’t just a regular cafe fit-out.

Coffee from Small Batch is brewed for espresso using their La Marzocco Linea, while filter coffee is brewed with a Behmor Brazen brewer. Almond milk and chai are made in-house, allowing the team to dictate what goes into the products they serve, as well as allowing them to tweak and improve on them as they wish.

rudimentary footscray australia
In food-focused Melbourne, more and more is demanded of cafes, and even in this competitive climate, the menu at Rudimentary stands out. As Huynh explained, “We change our menu with every season and we use the season to direct us in where to go. The one thing that guides us most is availability of produce. We use what’s in season because it tastes the best, it’s cheaper, and allows us to keep it local. Avocado, for instance, isn’t always the best year-round and is imported because Australians have an affinity with avo on toast. We elect to just pull it from our menu until it tastes good.”

Over the years, their menu has included inventive takes on classics and beyond, like chicken and waffles—including pickled watermelon rind—kimchi pancakes, and saffron rice pilaf. A key element that guides their menu is their produce that they use from the garden, a mere 10-second stroll from the kitchen itself. “The kitchen garden is run by our gardener, John, who is really knowledgeable and super-positive which gets us all inspired,” Huynh outlined, “John and the kitchen team get together once a season to go through what to plant for the coming months so that we can use whatever we’re growing in the dishes.”

rudimentary footscray australia

Desmond Huynh and Lieu Trieu, while not being the typical hospitality-lifers that we so often see setting out to open something, have built something quite special in Rudimentary. It’s an incredibly quality-focused venue that pumps out thoughtful food and tasty coffee, while still paying respect to the neighborhood that it calls home and creating a space for the community to congregate. It’s a fine balance that is incredibly hard to accomplish, and one that they’ve managed with aplomb—they’ve combined the old and the new of the diverse and vibrant neighborhood of Footscray, and here’s hoping they get to continue doing so for some time more.

Rudimentary is located at 16-20 Leeds St, Footscray VIC 3011. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

The post Thoughtful Food & Tasty Coffee Outside Melbourne At Rudimentary In Footscray appeared first on Sprudge.

Melbourne’s Market Lane Coffee Finds A New Home At The Queen Victoria Market

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In a town like Melbourne, where food and drink are the lifeblood of people’s professional and recreational day-to-day, places like the Queen Victoria Market are the beating heart of the city. It’s where families come to get their weekly groceries (and maybe some fancy delicatessen goods), it’s where chefs come to pick up seasonal vegetables and meat, and it’s where tourists flock to try the delicious dips and famed boreks (or to gather some delightfully kitschy Australiana souvenirs). It’s a delightful microcosm of all that Melbourne has to offer.

This diverse appeal, and the central location of the market, led founders Fleur Studd and Jason Scheltus to open an outpost of Market Lane Coffee at Queen Victoria Market over seven years ago on Therry Street, which runs alongside the market. (Disclosure: this writer worked for Market Lane between 2011–2014). In the years since, they’ve opened locations in Carlton, in the CBD, at South Melbourne market, and a satellite cafe within the deli area of Queen Vic Market. While their original Therry Street store absolutely flourished over the years, the building that housed the cafe was sold to the City of Melbourne four years ago, which meant they’d need to leave the space—prompting them to search for an alternative, more permanent location at the market to fill the gap. With this, they happily secured a new space on the corner of Victoria and Queen, in a beautiful terraced storefront—opening just in time for their Therry Street site to close its doors.

The design for the space was undertaken by Sarah Trotter of Hearth Studio, who’s designed the interiors of the last five Market Lane Coffee shops, while the build-out was done by Orio of Arteveneta, who’s also been behind the carpentry for nearly all the Market Lane venues over the years. The shop has one main bar where all the coffee brewing is undertaken, which creates a line and flow between the two entryways to the space—light wood frames the space through cabinetry, benches, and shelving, while brass handles, rich maroon tiles, and a patterned navy blue curtain punctuate the aesthetic and draw the eye.

The building itself is protected by a Heritage Overlay, which means that any new work needed to be undertaken with respect to historic aesthetic elements. As Trotter explained, “We aim to work in a way that is directly responsive to site and setting—and as such the historical and cultural context of the spaces within which Market Lane shops are located becomes very important to the way we design… Whilst our strategy revolved around the idea of minimal intervention, we were able to recognize and work with several opportunities the traditional Victorian shop front layout provided.”

Chatting to Scheltus about what they hope to achieve in the new space, he said, “One of the big goals is to create a space where our customers can sit and interact with our staff while they’re brewing coffee. I think bartenders are really lucky to be able to have many of their customers sitting comfortably in front of them as they work, giving them a great opportunity to create rapport, relationships, and a familiarity with their customers.”

While the team considered installing an under-the-counter espresso set-up to break down barriers, they eventually came to the conclusion that even the most subtle equipment can’t create an inviting and intimate environment for customers—instead, they set up dedicated bar seating that highlights the pour-over coffee station, allowing for extended interaction and engagement while staff are brewing filter coffee.

The offering here is relatively minimal—espresso coffee or filter coffee, along with a small selection of sweets from North Melbourne-based bakery Beatrix, and a retail offering with an emphasis on brewing at home.

As any enterprise matures over time, there’s the question of sustainability—not only in relation to finance and whether the business is viable, but also whether the company is growing in a way that promotes a healthy culture for the people that work in that business. It’s an evolution that is often key to a company’s success, and one that Market Lane has very much been paying attention to.

market lane coffee queen victoria melbourne australia

Co-Founders Jason Scheltus and Fleur Studd, and general manager Jenni Bryant

“From the outside it probably seems like the biggest change to the company has been the number of stores we have opened, but really the biggest change has been the structures around staff, their development, progression, and training.” Scheltus explained, “We made a conscious decision in 2013 to be the best place for coffee-focused hospitality staff to work—meaning since then we consider the engagement, well-being, progression, and training of staff.”

It’s this openness to evolution that has contributed to Market Lane Coffee’s growth from their original roastery and cafe in Prahran Market to a company that has six venues across Melbourne city. In a city like Melbourne that appears to have an insatiable thirst for high-quality coffee, Market Lane’s oft-appropriated tagline “We love to make coffee for the city that loves to drink it” definitely makes you feel like there’s no need for them to slow down any time soon.

Market Lane Coffee is located at 83-85 Victoria St, Melbourne VIC 3000. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

With photos courtesy of Armelle Habib for Market Lane Coffee.

The post Melbourne’s Market Lane Coffee Finds A New Home At The Queen Victoria Market appeared first on Sprudge.

A Coffee Drinker’s Guide To Canberra, Australia

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Where to drink coffee in Canberra, Australia.

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