Higher Ground

Housed in an 1890s power station, this Little Bourke Street hub anchors Melbourne brunch with sharp coffee and ambitious cooking. Soaring brick walls and tiered levels frame a room built for city mornings. Tables fill quickly for plates that veer well past the standard cafe rotation—most notably the towering ricotta hotcake, sized to feed two or three easily. Regulars point newcomers toward the prawn toast benedict, built on savoury prawn toast with a hit of kimchi hollandaise and a crisp Chinese doughnut, or the fried chicken croffle paired with smoked cream cheese and gochujang. Orders of iced long blacks and espresso clouds arrive alongside glasses of pinot grigio, sliding smoothly into plates of chilli scrambled eggs accented by pickled peppers and smoked yoghurt.