Fandango Café

By: Kirsten Law
Date: 29th Aug 07
Venue: Eatery
Meal: Snacktastic

What:
Fandango Café

Where:
97 Errol St, North Melbourne

When:
Tues-Fri 7.30am-3pm, Sat-Sun 8am-3pm, closed Mondays

Contact:
9329 0693

In this fast-paced, profit hungry world, it's nice to know there's still a place you can go where everyone knows your name. That place is Fandango. Since late November 2006, this now famous North Melbourne eatery, housed in a shopfront on bustling Errol Street, has been central to the social lives of many local residents and their friends (who, rumour has it, travel from as far away as Richmond to sample the wares).

Here there's breakfast all day, lunch from 11, fair trade organic coffee and free-range eggs. There are smoothies, hot chocolates, cup cakes, an interior worthy of any discerning inner city resident's approval, Bonsoy and a footy tipping competition. Highlights include apricot and date loaf with homemade honeyed cream cheese and roast pumpkin toasted pide with fetta, spinach, semi-dried tomato and pesto. Oh, and if the fear of type II diabetes isn't in you, brave the pancakes.

Until the famed courtyard reopens, outside dining is limited to the coveted pavement seating outfront, where, in lieu of full sunlight, you can borrow one of the inhouse crochet rugs. Inside it's cosy, bright and lively around the coffee machine, where customers of all ages revel in the general community atmosphere. If online social networking's got you down, Fandango will lift your spirits - it's Melbourne's real "place for friends".