Hamptons Home Living

Skinny Cap

I have been eager to try Hamptons Home Living since I read about it in Fiona Donnelly's 'Bites' column a few months back. So after an early morning of exercise I ventured there with two other cafe enthusiast's keen to try the St. Ali coffee and kick start the day with a bit of breaky. Upon arrival we were warmly greeted by the owner (Luke Stringer) and told to take a seat anywhere we liked. Even though it was a cool morning in Brisbane we opted for the back veranda as the city views are pretty great from the deck! Lucky for us there was a gas heater that Luke promptly turned on to keep us warm. Breakfast menu'swere immediately placed in front of us and our coffee order was taken straight away. The three of us pretty much always order the same coffee's (skinny cappuccino, skinny latte, regular latte) but I would have been interested to have seen a drinks menu for what else Hamptons offer in the beverage department. Oh well, next time!




Apple Bircher Muesli

Within minutes our coffee's were ready and our breakfast orders were taken. The St. Ali coffee well and truly lived up to the hype. Smooth, strong and sweet, I think its the first time I have never needed raw sugar in my coffee. For breakfast I ordered the Apple Bircher Muesli ($12) as I am a big muesli fan and my dining companions ordered the baked eggs with tomato and thyme ($15) and the Hamptons Full Breakfast ($22).



Baked Eggs

Hamptons offers two versions of the baked eggs, one with tomato and thyme and the other with chorizo, both served with Persian fetta and sourdough. As my friend is vegetarian she went with the tomato and thyme version and requested the dish without the Persian fetta. Luke said he was more then happy to accommodate but informed her that he also didn't like fetta and in fact Persian fetta is a different species to regular fetta and it adds a great dimension to the dish when melted through the eggs. His enthusiasm was enough to convince her to go give the Persian fetta a try. She commented the baked eggs were delicious and as Luke had said, the fetta wasn't noticeable when melted through the mixture of egg, tomato and thyme. The Hamptons Full Breakfast is the cafe's version of the big breakfast featuring bacon, eggs, hash brown, mushrooms and thyme  leavain sourdough. On this occasion the mushrooms were substituted for chorizo and the dish was a definant winner. The Apple Bircher Muesli was a filling mixture of dried figs, apricots, oats, hazelnuts, honey and yogurt with a fanned apple for decoration and was completely delicious!



Hamptons Breakfast

The presentation of all three dishes was spectacular and the attention to detail of the cafe decor was impeccable. When reading the menu it's obvious Hampton's focus on highlighting good quality, local, fresh produce. As I am a bit of a sweet tooth my only criticism of the breakfast menu was there was no sweet dish on offer. The addition of pancakes, waffles, french toast or banana bread would really complete the menu in my opinion. In saying this, Hamptons does offer sweet treats such as Cheesecake & Fudge Brownie slice, numerous cupcakes supplied by Cakes by Judy C and other mini pastries such as caramel tarts, bounty slice to name but a few. All in all, Hamptons Home Living is a perfect addition to Paddington and no doubt I will be back sooner rather then later!