Good Egg

The Verdict

The humble egg. You can fry it, bake it, boil it, poach it, scramble it...throw it at houses that displease you. Few foods come so perfectly packaged for their culinary destiny, apart from, perhaps, the banana.

Most cafes do eggs, but over the last few years, a number of specialist ‘egg cafes’ have hatched around the world. London got Bad Egg. New York got Egg Shop. And now Melbourne has Good Egg—a dedicated egg-centric bruncherie, with a sustainable spin.

It’s the project of co-owners Greg Bremner and Nick Deveraux, long-time operators of Balaclava’s Wall Two 80. The concept was pretty simple: to build a cafe that champions the egg as a bona fide brekky hero. To that end, they designed an egg-based menu that oozes yolky creativity.

There’s gastronomic throwbacks, like the scotch egg, which comes in two styles: pork and fennel, crumbed in panko and served with roast tomato relish, or wrapped in falafel and dolloped with harissa yogurt. There’s a bacon and egg roll (naturally), loaded with no-fuss fillings like nitrate-free bacon, Swiss cheese and Houses of Parliament Sauce. Potato cakes with egg-y truffle mayo are also a nice touch. For us though, the real winter hero is the chicken broth: silky soup with shredded chicken, stodgy veg, collard greens and a soft boiled egg. Perfect for those days when the Antarctic wind whistles down Coventry St.

As you’d expect, Good Egg’s eggs are all 100% open range (they source them from Real Eggs in Daylesford). The bacon is free-range too, from Western Plains, and Bremner and Deveraux use sustainable, compostable packaging wherever they can. It’s all part and parcel of being a ‘good egg’. Living life with a light touch, while eating delicious food. We’d cross the road for that every time.

Image credit: Jenna Fahey-White