Sit Marrickville

It was one of the openings we had our eyes on for 2026, and now the Baba’s Place crew has officially opened Sit on Illawarra Road in Marrickville.

From the outset, details were sparse. A few cryptic social posts, a soft, poetic line about time taking the time it takes. Now that the doors are open, Sit reveals itself as something both connected to and separate from its older siblings, including Baba's Place and Randwick’s Corner 75 revival.

Set within the ground-floor space of a 54-apartment social housing block, Sit is a 40-seat social enterprise cafe built in collaboration with Fresh Hope Communities and Nightingale Housing. It’s a group project in the truest sense, shaped by hospitality lifers Jean-Paul El Tom, Alex Kelly, Joy Della El Tom, James Bellos and Zaal Kaboli, alongside a network of local creatives.

If you’re expecting a daytime version of Baba’s, you won’t find it here. There’s no fixed cuisine anchoring the menu. Instead, nostalgia remains a loose undercurrent, while produce, seasonality and technique sit front and centre. The team describes it as thoughtful, approachable and technical — in other words, Sit is going to be whatever it needs to be.

Jean-Paul leads the kitchen with a focus on ferments and minimal intervention. Much of the dairy is cultured in-house and threaded through the menu with intention. There are pot-set yoghurts with honey and nuts, stirred yoghurts topped with seasonal fruit, and a cultured chocolate cream finished with red fruit. Pancakes (made with yoghurt and whey in place of buttermilk) arrive stacked under melting butter and maple syrup, cooked evenly on a custom flat plate.

Elsewhere, you’ll find fried egg fatteh, silky rolled omelettes stuffed with feta and greens and crowned with anchovy, butter-fried eggs with braised veg, boiled egg ficelle with labne, mint and za’atar, and steak and eggs. After 11am, the offering shifts to include a Belly’s burger, steamed rainbow trout with sweet potato and sour cream, and rice topped with bluefin tuna belly and stir-fry veg.

Bread comes courtesy of AP Bakery, while Reuben Hills is on the machine. Drinks span maraschino-foam-topped cold brew, freddo espressos, sticky honey-soaked chai, matcha, Valrhona hot chocolate, fruit frappes, cold-pressed juices and gelato shakes. There’s carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on the counter and maple granita with sour cream gelato for something cooler.

The space itself is layered and collaborative. You can sit at small sunny tables by ceiling-height windows, on church pews beneath a large-scale artwork, at glossy communal tables embedded with donated lace doilies and Iranian headscarves, or on a pastel-yellow grandstand crafted from recycled plastic that diverted a tonne of waste from landfill.

A lace-inspired chandelier by Ian Tran of Domus Vim hangs overhead, joined by a three-metre-wide Alien Spaces artwork, frilled glass pendants and Voluptuary ceramics. It’s textured, suburban and quietly detailed.

Service leans more restaurant than classic cafe. Staff are encouraged to interpret hospitality in their own way, keeping things warm and relaxed, but with a considered edge. Sit also positions itself as a platform for collaboration and community, with a noticeboard-style website and fortnightly newsletter sharing updates on events, menu changes and extended hours.

At its simplest, Sit is exactly what it says it is: a place to sit. A soft but firm invitation to slow down, share something and stay awhile. 

Image credit: Sit