a day in the life of a NICE Darlinghurst cafe

On Friday morning we at first thought our very own Premier, Nathan Rees, was providing some crowd control at Forbes and Burton.

We do attract a fine crowd of locals – check the Nun out sipping her double espresso.

Then Hugo Weaving piped up whilst eating his breakie saying he thought it was the riot squad.  The NSW Government does seem to overreact.

As it is not uncommon to see sniffer dogs roaming the streets of Darlinghurst we do not even blink an eye lid with the squat team arming up in front of the café.

To date no laws have been drafted to ban the sale of sustainable, organic and fair trade contraband.  We still can buy local.  Some liberties are still available.     The choice is ours.

Welcome to the FAB happy customer institute

You might think our eager to please, sustainable as we can possibly be and full of yumminess cafe is the result of an effortless ‘je ne sais quoi’ on our part. Behind the hospitable velvet curtain, or through the REUSE wood window, you can see our scientists at work. Sweat, blood and the occasional teardrop go into the mix so we can offer you a range of innovative dishes including many gluten free options. FAB is now listed by the Coeliac Society and we are taking great care in preparing truly gluten free dishes. 

Of course we applied the same exacting standard to the development of our Silly Season function menu and our world class yummiologists can adapt the menu to your needs. At the FAB institute we spare no expense in pleasing you because if you’re happy we are too.  Stay tuned for a raft of changes to the menu next week from our very own Nutty Professor Andrew Stinear.

Art, wagyu burgers, pumpkin pie and live green…

Until Sunday the 18th of October you’ll find the Live Green sustainable house up at Taylor Square featuring lots of great green idea along with REUSE design from our friends at Reverse Garbage.  Stroll down to FAB and try something new from our constantly changing specials menu. Our chef is channeling Obama’s America with a hint of Halloween and Thanksgiving Day showing through his latest creations: Wagyu Beef Burger, Frozen Pumpkin Pie and Flourless Belgian Chocolate Brownie.

The walls however are all Australian, featuring indigenous artworks from the central and western desert including Papunya, Papunya Tjupi, Kintore and Warlukurlangu. The works have ethical provenance – derived either from the ‘desert mob’ festival or from community run art centres. Certificates of authenticity come with all the works. 

Love Linda Jackson in the artbox? Check out the Australian Opal Centre.

Linda Jackson in art box, here comes Christmas…

As part of the City of Sydney’s Art and About we’ve installed a little piece of Australian iconography in our Art Box.  Fresh from Lightning Ridge comes Linda Jackson’s Opal Fossil.  The work explores our natural history and evokes a time – 110 million years ago – when the ridge was part of a great inland sea. The relics of this once fertile place are now filled with shimmering rainbow colours reminding us of the once upon a time ferns, mosses, plants, dinosaurs, turtles and other marine life.

And on the walls of the cafe we’ve installed the work of a number of indigenous artists – for sale – just in time for Christmas . This brings us neatly to the question of functions and a new tasting menu designed by chef Andrew Stinear to please your festive palate.