Sydney's Best Breakfasts
Breakfast is the perfect meal for catching up with friends without breaking the bank. Time Out toasts Sydney's top ten
10. Bar Zini Pyrmont
Best for A smart business breakfast
This unassuming little café does simple dishes well. Because Zini is so small, chef Charlie Bruyere has to make everything fresh (and from scratch) each day. It's a tiny little café on the pointy end of Harris Street in Pyrmont with a few outdoor seats and a long counter that dominates the room. Order the Nutella with toast and an espresso and be on your merry way if you like to eat like an Italian at breakfast – or sit down to something more substantial (Bruyere scrambles a great egg). If you're a coffee freak, you're in luck. Co-owner Gianni Chicco pulls an exceptional espresso.
Eat this Sausage cacciatore with scrambled eggs on toast. The coffee is a must.
The X factor Both young guys have both worked in some of Sydney's best restaurants, they're under 30 and they own the place together.
If it's full try Cafe Morso Pyrmont
9. Jeds Food Store Bondi Beach
Best for Eggs, eggs and more eggs
Forget standard Bondi café fare - we like our eggs Mexican-themed, our potato cakes Polish and our steak sandwiches with a little Creole. Seven Ways stalwart Jeds, now known as Jeds Food Store, have revamped their menu with the help of a few chilli peppers and whole lot of spice. Breakfast standouts include the Zapatista eggs, which come with fresh avocado and corn chips. For those who enjoy a liquid diet, the smoothies are top-notch, and the coffee is well above average.?
Eat this Chorizo omelette, garnished with an oversize chilli.
The X factor Jeds occupies the former site of a butcher, the meat-hanging rails of which still skirt the ceiling - although, to be honest, we're less concerned with historical meat and more with that voodoo-good steak sandwich.
If it's full try La Piadina Bondi Beach
8. Clipper Café Glebe
Best for Market shoppers
Order this Baked eggs with fetta, spinach and lamb sausage
The X factor The stack of back issues of design magazine Monocle
Having bought and sold half a dozen cafés in the inner west in as many years, Adriano Matteoni has got his café blend spot on with Clipper - a shabby-chic terrace full of character and characters that he opened six months ago. Ideally located just off Broadway on Glebe Point Road, Clipper is rammed full of Glebe Market shoppers on a Saturday who are manic for anything organic and don't mind huddling around the communal table. The tasty menu is heavy on the likes of spinach, eggplant and haloumi; they have their own blend of coffee roasted for them; and their juices will perk you up with your five-a-day sense of wellbeing.
If it's full, try Café Giulia Chippendale
7. Bangbang Surry Hills
Best for The full English, or Scottish, or Welsh rarebit
Order this The Scottish Brekkie: black pudding, square sausage, tatty scone, fried eggs and roast tomato
The X factor British owner Alan Thompson is a former Ministry of Sound DJ – witness the cool headphones motif on the wall
Tucked away down the Surry Hill that is Reservoir Street, Bangbang is the kind of café that you have to make an effort to find. But your efforts will be rewarded with good value, homely British fare made with quality ingredients. If you're not feeling brave enough to stomach black pudding first thing in the morning, try their awesome Bangbang Veggie Brekkie: haloumi, poached eggs, avocado, house-made baked beans, bubble and squeak, roast tomato and sourdough toast. They've been open just four months now and they bake and make pretty much everything on site – although they don't do their own juices yet. And they could do with some tables out the front; we had to rest our plates on our laps.
If it's full try Wall Café Surry Hills
6. The Marigold Sydney
Best for A force five hangover
Eat this Yum cha, dummies!
The X factor Big choice, big room, and it's Tetsuya's fave
Yum cha for breakfast on a lazy late weekend morning is a rite of passage in Sydney. "But this isn't bacon and eggs!" Oh we hears ya, outraged mob. It's true: for breakfast traditionalists, this probably sounds like heresy. But there's nothing like steamed dumplings and endless Chinese tea (and maybe even an icy cold Coke) to tame a hangover. If you've managed to crawl out of bed and gotten dressed, the battle's half won already. Marigold is one of the best and most popular places for yum cha in the city. The selection going around on the trolleys is huge, the quality's great and the room is massive, so the wait for a table isn't too long. The temptation to eat the fried things may be great but resist and hold out for the steamed dumplings, flat rice rolls and pork riblets - you'll leave feeling like you need a lie down, but much better for the fact.
If it's full try Zilver Haymarket
5. Bather's Pavillion Balmoral
Best for Special occasions and showing off to visitors
Order this Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup ($19.80)
The X factor The view: you can't get much closer to the water without getting wet
Eating at Bathers' always makes us feel like we're on holiday. Balmoral is one of the most picturesque beaches in Sydney and is well worth making a special effort to get to. Not everyone knows that Bathers' has a café and kiosk as well as a fine-dining double-clother. The poached rhubarb French toast with figs and honey mascapone ($18.50) is naughty but very nice this month, as are the blueberry pancakes. Wash them down with a Balmoral sunrise ($7): orange and lime juice blended with egg and honey. At $20-plus for the cooked dishes, it's a breakfast that may break the bank as well as the belt, but it's worth it for a one-off. And hey, you're on holiday, remember?
If it's full try Awaba Café Balmoral
4. Deus ex Machina Camperdown
Best for Hearty fare and a cool vibe
At this café/bike shop, the coffee machine is god. A mix of industrial design and cool art (the owner is Mambo founder Dare Jennings), Deus is more order-and-pay than silver service but the table runners are super nice. Sit at one of the big communal tables, grab some magazines and try the baked beans on toast with an AC Butchery pork and fennel sausage on the side. It's right on Parramatta Road so the cafe attracts punters from nearby Newtown, Sydney Uni, the hospital and heaps of fringe businesses.
Eat this House-made granola with yoghurt and fresh fruit or be super unhealthy and order one of their chocolate milkshakes.
The X factor There's a table covered in back issues of The New Yorker as well as all the local papers and mags for your reading pleasure.
If it's full try Love #3 Camperdown
3. Baffi & Mo Redfern
Best for Checking out an up-and-coming area
Order this Potato hash stack with ham, avocado, tomato and asparagus topped with a poached egg
The X factor They make all their jams and chutneys
In a great year for new café openings, Baffi and Mo deserve special praise. If the Hills are alive then neighbouring Redfern is kicking right now and Baffi and Mo is fuelling the gentrification of the area with hearty fare and heart-starting caffeine. The room, dominated by a friendly communal table, opens out onto Redfern Street for great people watching. Their open kitchen is a marvel of relaxed efficiency and the food it produces make it worth making a special visit. Their signature dish is Eggs Baffi with roasted mushrooms, feta, spinach and hollandaise but the potato hash stack is our tip. Incidentally, you'll notice the moustache mo-tif on the sign (baffi is Italian for moustache). Co-owner Anne is obsessed with facial hair. "I don't have any myself yet," she says. "Although I am Italian, so it may only be a matter of time."
If it's full try Side Plate Redfern
2. Number 9 Potts Point
Best for Breakfast classics
You may have seen barista Ana Page around the traps; she used to work on Victoria Street at A Tavola. Page is behind the machine making extremely good coffee (they use Melbourne brand Genovese). There's fresh-squeezed orange juice, too. But we're loving the house-made lemonade with lavender syrup - it's sweet but not too sweet, floral and very soothing. The menu may be brief, but it's all quality: soft, perfectly seasoned, buttery scrambled eggs on toast; organic porridge; or toasted spiced honey loaf with ricotta. Number 9 also do some of the best pancakes in town: served with thick cream and rose-honey syrup, they have crisp edges while remaining soft and fluffy in the middle.
Eat this The pancakes.
The X factor They make all their own syrups from rose syrup for the pancakes to violet syrup for the lemonade.
If it's full try Yellow Potts Point
1. Kazbah Balmain
Best for Breakfast degustation
This café offers Middle Eastern fare that will keep you firing on all cylinders for the weekend. Brekkie dishes include a lamb breakfast tagine with Turkish toast, pita bread and squeeze of lemon, or foul – pronounced like fool – medammas (an Middle Eastern peasant dish of beans mashed with olive oil and spices. Yum). Fresh juices and Egyptian Hibiscus tea feature, too.
If you want to go all out, order the breakfast degustation. You need to be a group of eight or more and book ahead, but at just $20 per person for a meal that will fill you up till Monday, it represents crazily good value for money. Pace yourself, people: this is a breakfeast; a fantasia degustation of Middle Eastern/North African-inspired tastiness. Curb your enthusiasm for the carbs because the second course of eggs done three ways on Turkish toast with merguez sausage, haloumi and all the trimmings is irresistible. But once you've lubricated your stomach with a tot of viscous Turkish coffee, you can handle anything. Even if you're just popping in for some labne on toast or a simple omelette, you can't beat Kazbah for interesting, tasty, inexpensive food and great service.
Eat this The breakfast tagine.
The X factor It's the only place in Sydney that does a breakfast degustation and is incredibly cheap, to boot.
If it's full try Adriano Zumbo Café Chocolat Balmain
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