The Thousands

I have no angle for Twenty & Six Espresso. The last café I wrote up was grungy, slapdash and slightly illegal; it had crates, it was a little bit dangerous, it practically wrote itself. Twenty & Six has crates too but they’re nice crates. Madja – who runs the place with her ex-graphic designer partner Nedim – used to be an interior designer. She’s responsible for the nice crates. She’s also responsible for open spaces, clean look, classy cups imported in from Croatia and (my personal favourite) the quirky glasses that look like crumpled plastic. It’s very inviting but it’s not exactly an angle.

In the not too distant future they’re planning to convert their bluestone cellar into a subterranean serving zone. When that happens, it’ll be the North Melbourne café with the awesome subterranean serving zone / potential bomb shelter. Until it does Twenty & Six Espresso will just have to known as a North Melbourne café that has great coffee, lovely staff and is far enough away from Errol Street to be a little bit of a secret.

I will say this though: they served me an Indonesian hot cocoa drink that’s was so good I gulped it down on a 30 degree day and their pizza (fior di latte, goats cheese, roasted red capsicum and sremska sausage) was so good both me an old Italian-looking dude named Alfonso sitting near me gave it the thumbs up.