Eamon Farren, actor in Sydney Theatre Company's Switzerland; from Darlinghurst
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WHERE
Kitchen by Mike
WHY
"I love the vibe - [it's] really relaxed and chilled. You can have a cool hearty lunch or have a coffee and read the paper, or have a boozy lunch with friends. It is canteen-style and has market ingredients. It doesn't feel like you're eating in a restaurant, it feels like the lady down the street cooking for you."
WHAT
"One of the great things about it is they change their menu depending on what they get at the market. It's part of the adventure to see what's on offer each day. The best combination by Kitchen by Mike is their coffee and dessert. If you get one of their healthy lunches, you're allowed to eat one of their excellent homemade desserts as well - perfect after lunch.
"I'm a big coffee drinker, I like a flat white. I need a script, a director, a design team and a coffee to do my job! I'm not a massive cook. I eat out quite a lot. I do a mean spaghetti bolognaise and the secret ingredient is rosemary, though that's probably not a secret.
ABOUT
"I discovered early on that it's not best to have a massive dinner just before you go on stage. During production, I work best on a light dinner after a big lunch. Pasta is the worst thing to eat before going on stage - no-one likes a slow, bloated actor, especially at the Opera House, where I'm against the formidable Sarah Peirse!
"I'm currently acting in Switzerland, a play by Joanna Murray-Smith about Patricia Highsmith, a forgotten author. She wrote The Talented Mr Ripley and The Price of Salt, which is renamed Carol for the upcoming version starring Cate Blanchett. Murray-Smith focuses on the lightness and the darkness of humanity. The play imagines what it would be like to be stuck in a room with the great Highsmith - she's known as being an intense, cruel woman; she's a very complicated woman. My character turns up at her house in Switzerland. The play ... explores the life of the artist.
"I have an independent film coming out on December 4 called Love is Now. It's a love story about a young, burgeoning photographer, Dean, who meets a more experienced photographer, Audrey, and they set off on this romantic journey through the orchards of NSW, fruit picking. It's a really exciting project."
Switzerland is at Sydney Opera House until December 20.
KITCHEN BY MIKE
85 Dunning Avenue, Rosebery, 9045 0910, kitchenbymike.com.au
Breakfast, $4.50-$20. $40 for two, including drinks.
3.5 OUT OF FIVE STARS
Breakfast. Brunch. Coffee. Whatever you call your gastronomic start to the day, Sydney is good at it. Yes, the full English is a British institution, and the cocktail-accompanied brunch is a New York phenomenon, but we have made an industry of the sun-drenched healthy first meal.
We've built an entire culture around it, spreading a name for ourselves through sourdough, flat whites and 60/60 eggs. A good, nourishing breakfast in a busy, convivial setting is just so harbour city. And it extends well beyond Balmoral and Darlinghurst.
Kitchen by Mike is, of course, no newcomer. Its less-is-more approach, attention to detail and accent on minimum waste and maximum thought is rightly talked about by many a breakfast lover. And the Alexandria warehouse is in no danger of slowing down, continually moving with the times, churning more buttermilk (Mike - the Mike - McEnearney is something of an uber-mensch in the buttermilk world) and pickling more perfectly peeled, slender carrots.
Brekkie is served from 7am to 11.30am, the canteen-style service a boon for those who like their mornings as uninterrupted as possible.
If I had a fiver for every chia-seed coconut milk pudding-cum-breakfast in jars I've seen on Sydney menus this spring, I'd be able to live on the frogspawn-like seeds and their equally unparsimoniously-priced coconut yoghurt partner in crime ($13 a pop for a tub in the open fridge, no less). It's probably silly money, but it's oddly satisfying stuff - nourishing food that feels refreshing, filling and light. Mike's version is topped with stewed rhubarb, chilled and just right for a warm day.
It's all things bread where Mike really gets going, and there are plenty of choices on offer. Essene toast is a heavy fella, thick with grain and topped with a slick of black tahini, labneh and a drizzle of honey. It's rich and nutty and not sweet, though not a generous portion.
It's always a pleasure to see a Ploughman's on a menu, and a daybreak one makes so much sense. The dish is a catch-all term for a kind of British-blooded antipasto misto, if you will. Fresh sheep's milk cheese, a little pile of sprouts, pickled veggies, half an avocado, a glossy egg with a runny yolk and a heap of proper ham with toast is a breakfast of champs. The menu ante is upped for the weekend crowd, when the likes of sourdough pancakes and lemon curd and baked beans, bacon and coddled egg do their bit for the hungry.
The industrial space pours into Koskela, the church of lovely homewares goods. It's worth a look at for a sustainably-made lampshade or a new dustpan and brush, say. You know the fare and general jolliness levels are above average when you happily dine next to brooms and other cleaning paraphernalia and still feel looked after, treated and in sound hands.
At the weekend, the queues precede the place - I've seen them trailing out of the door onto the street before, and that's after looping around the massive, airy dining area. Concrete and asphalt floors, big wooden tables, a wall of plants, wood stacked high, vast lightshades that resemble giant, dangling magicians' cups and an air of doing something well make for an inner south-west hit; somewhere to make a trip out of.
Outside, the physic garden has taken shape, emerging bit by bit to highlight, through medicine, the healing effect of plants. There are few places where your meal's components are broken down so physiologically - parsley's uses in dermatology or oregano's place in gastronomy, for example.
We've focused on breakfast, but Kitchen by Mike does fast trade at lunch, too, catering to the fashion designers, media types, interior designers and all shades of light industry who work in the area.
As breakfast lands in our midst, great heaps of flour are being weighed in the open kitchen, bread in mid-preparation. Bowls of lemons and piles of greens make their way into the workspace, readying for the lunch crowd. Take a leaf out of our actor Eamon Farren's book and choose a biodynamic or organic wine with your lunch of roasted, herby chicken and woody, spiced pumpkin. After all, the accent here is on produce, its roots, its story and the implications of how we choose to fill up and celebrate.
