The only table left at Ginger Brown café when I ring to book Sunday breakfast is the bench in the window, but that’s fine with me. It’s got the right light for taking photographs, and for my teenage companion it’s the perfect spot for people-watching.
“I didn’t really hear what you said,” she tells me shortly after we’re seated. I’ve had the temerity to speak to her as a young man wearing his cap backwards slouches past, and I cannot compete. Even more excitement comes moments later when she spots a celebrity – the Gourmet Farmer himself drives past on a Sunday morning jaunt.
We like South Hobart for its chi-chi village atmosphere, vintage shops, and upmarket providores. Every village needs a great café, and Ginger Brown fills that demand with bustling, feel-good aplomb. I stumbled across it once and, after a velvety slow-cooked beef, vowed to return.
Sunday morning is peak time and everybody is comfortable here. There are professionals who have teamed their blazers with jeans for a studied weekend look, and more relaxed types who are wearing a jumper salvaged from their bedroom floor.
In the middle of the room is a large table housing a family who are bathed in low winter sunlight and hoeing in to extravagantly packed plates. There are lovers holding hands and singletons at the bench towards the back, where a person can dine in solitude surrounded by people.
When we leave later, the keen-for-breakfast crowd has left and been replaced by mothers, toddlers and babies kicking back on the sofas.
We already love this place and our food isn’t even on the table yet.
We’ve ordered, but that took a while because the choices are intriguing. After agonising, I have chosen the savoury waffles with barbecue pulled pork, charred spring onion, poached eggs, chilli Hollandaise and coriander. It sounds like a feast, and indeed is. I don’t eat for the rest of the day. Tapping notes into my phone, I hear my young companion say, “That’s what you’re having” – she has found an image of my breakfast on social media, which specialises in taking the surprise out of things. But it looks sensational.
She herself has more modest needs and has ordered plain crumpets with peanut butter, and the splendid-sounding “dirty cacao banana vanilla and espresso super-smoothie”. This arrives first, along with my infinitely more pedestrian flat white. The super-smoothie is everything it should be: unctuous, good-for-you and dribbling thickly down the side of its frosted glass. A pool of cocoa nibs on the top declares its wholefood intentions.
Food arrives and I capture it in the lovely light from the window. Nobody bats an eyelid and the woman next door to me holds her phone at arm’s length to take a picture of herself with her pot of tea.
Abandoning the digital age, I sink once more into the simpler epicurean one of taste and texture. In this, the Ginger Brown chefs excel. These people know what they are doing with food, a talent which makes for happy, repeat diners.
My pork has a barbecue tang and pulls apart in satisfying shreds. The waffles are toasted to form a crusty base which the pork sinks into as if into a comfortable bed. The hint of chilli in the Hollandaise marries everything together, and the greens bring zing. For a generous half hour, I am extremely happy.
And so it seems is everyone else here. Exuberance is allowed at Ginger Brown, as is guffawing, the clattering of plates and cutlery, slouching comfortably in one’s seat, and chattering to one’s fellow diners, even the ones you don’t know.
In front of us on the outside of the window is a table housing a local gentleman and his impeccably behaved boxer dog, which works a bit like Tinder for middle-aged people. When a passing Pomeranian – looking like a pure white car-wash brush – flings itself at the boxer, we wonder if there will be a fight, taking our window-watching to new levels.
Back inside, as I slice into my second oozing poached egg, Single Minds are on the soundtrack, telling me not to forget about them, followed by Hot Chocolate announcing they still believe in miracles. Both seem apt.
I try a little of my companion’s crumpet and even this modest dish distinguishes itself, the crumpet evidently made in-house or locally, and the freshly chopped peanut butter a far less processed thing than one gets from a jar.
The management somehow manage to be simultaneously brisk and smiley; there is assiduous and reassuring wiping of tables, and they are equally lovely to their diners and young waiting staff alike.
Great cafes excel with modesty and capture the flavour of their place. Ginger Brown is one of those.
Fiona Stocker is a writer based in the Tamar Valley. She has published the books A Place in the Stockyard (2016) and Apple Island Wife (2018). For more information, see fionastocker.com.
