It Takes A Village - Village On Cloey, Clovelly

Village on Cloey is a very popular cafe in Clovelly that serves up delicious breakfast and brunch. And save room for their house baked goods like their Portuguese custard tarts that some say are one of the best in Sydney!

For someone that doesn't seem to like food very much, Nina is often my source for eating out recommendations. Every time we meet for brunch, it's the same conversation. I want to meet at 11am, she wants to meet at 10am and we meet at 10:30am. "I might die from starvation," says Nina dramatically.

I had just finished a brutal Pilates class but we meet them outside at 10:30am and wait for a table. "Are you ok?" I ask Nina. "Yes we already had coffee and a croissant," she says looking slightly guilty. "Who are you? Have we done a Freaky Friday body swap?" I ask her.

It's only about a 10 minute wait and by then we have had a look at the menu so we know what we want but ask for some recommendations. I start with a pot of house made chai with almond milk and it comes in a large jug with a strainer. It's good and not too sweet.

Nina has a green juice while Mr NQN and Garth (always twinning) have a "back in the day iced coffee". I thought that that might have come out with cream on top or in a retro style glass. It's a regular tall iced coffee, it's good - but not that different from a regular one.

Our food comes out a short time later. Hands down my favourite dish is the smashed peas. The peas are sweet and served on Nonies gluten free bread with roasted Dutch carrots, house made ricotta, a poached egg, salad, thyme infused heirloom tomatoes and za'atar and I also love Nina's addition of grilled halloumi. I'd order this again in a flash.

Another favourite is the roasted pumpkin and quinoa salad with a 62°C poached egg, wild rice, edamame bean, dried cranberries, fried shallots, dukkah, pomegranate arils, Brussels sprouts with a green tahini spread. It's wholesome, healthy and tasty which is pretty much everything that I want in a breakfast.

The Thai scrambled eggs have crispy chilli, roast cashew nuts, coriander, mint on flat bread. There's a big blanket of salad on top and this is quite good although I think I was hoping for more spiciness to the eggs.

A lot of the items are actually vegetarian and you can add meat onto them but they actually sound delicious as is and the only one we added meat to is the breakfast quesadilla. It's a large quesadilla cut into quarters and filled with black beans, cheese, sweet corn salsa, cultured jalapeno crème fraiche & poached egg. It's really good especially when you add the corn salsa, avocado and creme fraiche to it.

Nina and I go off to take a look at the window display at Tugu bakery, their bakery a few doors down the street. It's a tiny bakery with the smell of butter and pastry baking but we go back to the cafe to order pastries so we can sit down and eat them.

The cinnamon scroll has a nice amount of cinnamon sugar layers although I think this would be much better served warm.

The Portuguese custard tart has a beautifully brittle pastry base and a creamy, smooth custard filling. These are said to be made every day by one of the owners Diogo Ferreira and his mother Lucia using a recipe brought over from Portugal by his father Gus. We brush off the pastry crumbs from our clothing.

So tell me Dear Reader, what time is your ideal time to meet for brunch on the weekend? Do you usually add some sort of meat to a dish if given the option or would you just leave it vegetarian?

This meal was independently paid for.

Village On Cloey

231 Clovelly Rd, Clovelly NSW 2031 Open 7 days 6:30am–4pm