St Ali

I’d heard a lot about St Ali in South Melbourne, and had missed a few opportunities to go there. So I jumped at the opportunity to go there with my friend Megsy on a lovely Friday morning when she had a week off. And I’m enjoying more leisure time at the moment which leaves my mornings open for lots of breakfast. Note to self: start counteracting breakfast out with exercise.

St Ali is rather nondescript from the outside - bare white painted bricks, no real sign, certainly no name declaring it to be what I was looking for. The building opposite it pretty standout, so perhaps look for that and then do a 180! Lucky for me, Megsy got there first and her waiting out the front was a giveaway that it was the location I was looking for. This lack of signage certainly isn’t hurting their business cause for a non-weekday day this pretty large establishment was pretty bustling. In a large converted warehouse, the inside has an airy industrial feel but there’s a few walls here and there, so it’s not like you’re eating in a big beer hall. It also has high ceilings, a courtyard of sorts and a surprising amount of natural light.

Now St Ali alleged has the best coffee in Melbourne. Then again so Tiffo heard that Mixed Business did too. And just this past weekend I was taken to Brother Baba Budan because I just had to try the coffee, apparently it's the best coffee in Melbourne.

My coffee at St Ali was really good, but it didn’t bowl me over like when I went to APTE (funnily enough Tiffo didn’t have a great coffee experience there – go figure). And I had that same “whoa this coffee is blowing my mind” experience with my coffee at BBB. I guess to put it into perspective, I’d go out of my way to get a coffee at St Ali if I was near the South Melbourne area, where as I’d probably go into the city just to get a coffee at BBB. You know, if I had nothing better to do, desperately needed coffee and could justify the trip.

The menu was pretty appealing, I was torn between at least three items and for me this is a good sign. I eventually went for the ‘My Mexican Cousin’, which was consisted of corn fritters, baby spinach, haloumi and kasundi with poached or fried eggs ($17.50). Naturally I opted for poached eggs. It was pretty great, I’ve been on a real haloumi kick lately so it hit the spot.

Megsy got the ‘Deconstructed NYC Bagel’, which had house cured sake salmon on toasted bagel with avocado and fetta mash and horseradish cream cheese ($18.00). I was pretty surprised when it came out looking so, well, deconstructed but when I think about it, how else would it be? I was drooling over the horseradish cream cheese.

All in all it was pretty great. My only bad experience was when parking and someone stole my spot by standing in it (as a pedestrian, what the?). But that can hardly be blamed on the restaurant. I’d definitely go back, although I hear it’s madness on the weekends, but that just says it all doesn’t it?