If You’re Going to Serve Fruit Toast, Serve the Best Fruit Toast in the World

The Kettle Black, South Melbourne

I’ve visited Melbourne four or five times in the last few years, and for some reason had never actually had a proper Melbourne coffee. Every cup I’ve had has been at a conference venue or the airport, never managing to get near a real coffee shop in all the times I’ve been there.

Well the chance to break this drought came along and I took it. On a business trip to Melbourne my colleague and I decided to stop for a coffee and bite to eat before our client meeting. Both of us had been up since 4am to make the flight down from Brisbane, so even by 9:30am the day was threatening to become a struggle.

After we got dropped off in South Melbourne we did a little internet research and found a place just up the block from where we were standing called The Kettle Black. The Yelp reviews are good (the Urban Spoon reviews not so good), so in we went.

First impressions, great looking venue and a good crowd, so all signs indicated we were onto something good.

The Kettle Black, South Melbourne

We ordered coffee and food. I ordered the fruit toast.

Now, I’ve eaten fruit toast before in my life. Supermarkets around here sell two kinds – the thinly sliced, cinnamon flavoured stuff with a few sultanas through it; and the thicker “cafe style” version.

My expectations were set somewhere around the thicker “cafe style” version. It was just as I was taking my first sips of coffee and thinking “wow this is quite a good coffee” that my fruit toast arrived at the table.

Look at this fruit toast. LOOK AT IT!

Fruit Toast

This was the most amazing fruit toast I’ve eaten in my entire life. Every bite was a delicious experience. I spent all day thinking about this fruit toast. I sent a photo of it to my wife. I posted about it on Facebook. 48 hours later I’m writing a blog post about this fruit toast.

This fruit toast was just that good. In fact, it has ruined fruit toast for me. Every fruit toast I eat for the rest of my life will be compared to this, and I don’t know if any of it will live up to the incredibly high standard that this fruit toast has set.

This place was so good we went back for lunch and had another delicious meal and coffees. I spent more time looking around and noticed more of the little details. None of them look like an accident, someone has gone to great effort to make everything as close to perfect as they possibly can.

Like not being just another cafe that serves fruit toast.

Melbourne you were lovely to visit, even if you did try to drench me then freeze me at the end of the day. Your weather if crazy, but your fruit toast is the best.

Melbourne Sunset

By Paul Cunningham

Paul is a writer and entrepreneur living in Brisbane, Australia. He enjoys spending time with his family and running in the mountains. Paul was the founder of Practical 365, a former Microsoft MVP, and Pluralsight trainer. Paul is also on Twitter and Instagram.

1 comment

  1. OMG Ihave to totally agree I ve never been able to get fruit toast like I get when visiting Melbourne its amazing I get it every time I can!! We re now near the SA border and bam back to regular so called fruit toast with the odd bit of sultanas peppered through the dough!! I just had to google it today found thus post 1st off exactly what I was thinking Paul haha !!

Comments are closed.