Gallery Cafe

I used to be a big fan of this place. All the management and ownership change didn’t do it any good. Staff seem disinterested, and coffee is average, despite being campos. This morning the barrista said «damn, I knew I was going to do that» while making my coffee, but then still put the lid inland handed it to me. I can only imagine what he did. It’s off my list of places to consider even anymore.

The food is hit and miss — sometimes excellent, sometimes very average. I usually stick to the club sandwich or pulled pork sandwich with fries, which is consistently good. And I like anywhere which does an all-​day breakfast. Great smoothies too. Service very ambivalent. I like the look of the desserts but am always too full!

The big serving sizes keep pulling me back to this café, plus the great pastries. The service can be a bit hit and miss, but again, it depends on when you go and how busy it is. Sometimes the waiting line for coffee is out the door, but I find it average, despite having Campos on offer. They do have a good menu for breakfast and I’d recommend it for people who want to spend a good deal of time over lunch or breakfast.

The Gallery is probably the busiest café on Booth St any given weekend, and yet the café’s obvious popularity is not reflected in the quality of the experience.
The Gallery’s shop is beautiful. With only a couple of tables near the narrow front end of the café, the best spot is in the back room which is often filled with dappled morning light. This section provides the perfect backdrop for a potentially great breakfast. And yet somehow things tend to go wrong.
Whilst the portions are big (really big), I feel that quality is compromised for quantity. The mountain of fluffy scrambled eggs has lost its eggy taste and is replaced instead with a bland milky flavour that begs questions as to the egg to milk ratio. On my last visit, a mouldy pot of jam was brought to my table and when I brought it to the waiter’s attention, he simply swapped the pots of jam, leaving the mouldy jam on a table for another lucky customer. Service is friendly, but the waiters seem to think they don’t need to write your order down, the downside being that your order is often wrong.
The Gallery is a nice venue, and I figure they must be doing something right, as the crowds continue to swarm here. I’m just not too sure what that something is.

The Gallery Café is deceptively sized: occupying one regular shopfront on Booth Street, the main café area extends way back to a large dining area and with another section downstairs. As you might imagine, the walls adorned with paintings, giving this establishment its name. This is a fairly beloved café in the area and with good reason.
The portions at Gallery are astronomical: the last time I dined, I ordered the chorizo and scrambled eggs breakfast with two extra hash browns (roughly $ 18) and the plate arrived looking like Richard Dreyfus’ mashed potato sculpture in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It was a truly massive and formidable serving and I attacked it with gusto. I didn’t eat lunch that day, if you were wondering. Additionally, I have to reserve special praise for the hash browns: slightly closer to a fritter than a traditional hash brown, this doesn’t matter. These are so tasty and soft. It’s ridiculous. My brain is salivating right now as it thinks of it.
The service is generally of a high standard and on the busier weekend days, you can expect a little wait if you come at peak times. On my last visit for coffee, after a ten minute wait on a sparsely patronised afternoon, we were served by a waitress who was a little awkward which made us feel a little awkward and launched a cycle of awkward feelings. This is the exception, however, rather than the rule, so rest assured that your experience will probably be smooth sailing.