Westgarth Village is where the ‘hipsterfication’ of Northcote began. I can still remember Seven Sisters cafe opening around 1990, followed some years later by Alphabet City. Since then, much of the cool cafe/bar action has occurred a few hundred metres up the hill.
Gypsy Hideout (68 High St, Northcote), a newcomer to Westgarth, and tipped off by a solitary review, we decided to pay a visit.
It’s an enterprise that brings equal parts old school Northcote and new school Northcote, although I suspect it’s aiming more for the latter. The space is light and airy, with nice big windows looking out on to High Street, and is sparsely furnished with plywood furniture. A large gap under the back door let a cold draft in on this cool Spring morning.
The menu offers some twists on the stock standard breakfast offerings, and I chose poached eggs on toast with cream cheese, fresh chilli, red onion, kaffir lime leaves and coriander. It’s an interesting, and successful, combination of ingredients, with the chilli and coriander lifting the flavour of the cream cheese. Unfortunately the bread was slices too thinly, and the egg yolks were an unappetisingly dull colour, but otherwise it was a good dish.
My girlfriend ordered baked eggs with beans. The actual description on the menu was a little more tempting, and it was a tasty dish, despite the eggs being overcooked and the whole thing generally seeming a little on the dry side.
I had my usual long black, and it wasn’t a particularly good example.
Yes, Gypsy Hideout has a bit of work to do. But it is trying to offer something beyond the usual breakfast fare, and for that, and the fact that it’s probably still finding its feet, I have to give it the thumbs up.
