Contessa Balmain

Located on Darling St, this place is always busy with either people getting takeaway coffee or sitting down to eat. It’s quite a small cafe but very open, tables spill into outside. With a huge mural on the wall, the cafe feels very Balmainy. Service was great, they even offered to deliver our coffees to the Escape Travel i was working from that day. CAESAR SALAD $14.50 Baby cos, crispy trim bacon, free range boiled egg, shaved italian parmesan, traditional caesar dressing & garlic bread. Add grilled marinated chicken / smoked salmon / sauteed prawns $5.00 each - perfectly sized salad, chicken was yummy too!

Coffee was great, food was pretty good (French toast, meatballs, Breakfast burrito) however the wait time was unacceptable. We saw how busy they were at 10am so came back after 11am to receive a table inside and have available tables around us. We finished our drinks, I went for a walk across the road and finally asked how much longer it would take for our food to arrive. Another 5-10minutes and it arrived. While I didn't time it, it would have been close to 50minutes. While waiting we did ask a waitress what the blue lights were that kept flashing. She had no idea but we found out after googling it. A small thing but a bit of local knowledge of a contemporary artwork that holds significance to the area would give the service a little step up. AFTER READING RESPONSE A LITTLE SHOCKED AS I AM IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY! TRUST ME WORKING IN AIRLINES I DEFINITELY KNOW HOW HARD IT HAS BEEN! THOUGHT I WAS OFFERING A LITTLE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND SHOCKED BY THE OWNERS RESPONSE! THAT I DROPPED A STAR

Outstanding cafe! The staff are awesome - incredibly friendly but not too over the top. The service is really good and the food - omg - definitely make sure you go there hungry as the serving sizes are enormous. Our go to is the chicken salad, meatballs or burger. Great coffee too. The owner is just gorgeous. It's out go to place in Balmain. Bravo team Contessa!