Jacqui Felgate reviews the Collingwood cafe Harry Styles visited last weekend
Press PLAY below for Jacqui’s full review
Trust Harry Styles to find the coolest space in Melbourne for lunch.
Tucked away off Smith Street is CIBI, a warehouse-style breakfast, brunch and lunch space.
It’s part cafe, part retail, a mismatched collection of tables and indoor plants — and it all just works. CIBI also hosts cooking classes and exhibitions.
We enjoyed a late lunch and there was barely a spare table – maybe that’s why Harry sat outside.
What I loved about CIBI is after ordering you can wander the space and check out the most AMAZING collection of Japanese pottery, kitchenware, homewares and clothing. There’s also a providore with some beautiful dry goods, tea and coffee.
We started with Japanese brown rice tea — genmaicha — which was superb.
CIBI is well known for its Japanese breakfasts – the signature is a grilled salmon with a rolled omelette, greens rice and miso (I’ll get to the miso in a bit!). I want to head back to try “Mum’s Scrambled Eggs” with cherry tomato, tamari, mizuna and CIBI rice blend.
For lunch, I tried the CIBI Chicken Soboro – free-range chicken mince cooked with miso and ginger, soy egg (DELICIOUS) greens, edamame, and CIBI rice blend. I would eat this dish every single day for lunch and I would never get sick of it. It was so tasty, the flavour balance was spot on.
The CIBI plate came with grilled salmon, seasonal veg, pickles and CIBI rice.
The Udon Noodle Soup was topped with chicken soboro mince, roasted eggplant, onsen egg, sour plum, spring onion and a house made broth.
And that’s the thing about CIBI – everything is so homely and tasty. None more so than the miso soup. It’s Meg’s grandma’s recipe – it’s thick and rich and delicious and it’s the kind of dish you could drink all day in winter and I feel like it would cure all that ails you.
We finished with a creamy baked cheesecake and a sweet and sticky flourless orange cake. Both were top notch. A left with a full belly and a full heart (and a large packet of that amazing tea!) now, If only Harry was still there.
Pro tip: CIBI also has a variety of take home meals and if you’re in Tokyo, there’s a CIBI there too!
CIBI
33/39 Keele St, Collingwood
cibi.com.au