“Oh I know just the place for us” Queen Viv intoned authoritatively to me. I know she knows exactly what I like so at times like these I’m happy to give up eating location decisions to Queen Viv. When I had told her that I wanted to go to the Berkelouw Books Cafe on Oxford Street in Paddington she told me that an even nicer one existed in Newtown. And when she told me it involved stuffed vintage leather lounges I was even more sold.
We walk through the bookstore (which is always a good place for last minute gifts as they do free gift wrapping – many a time my derriere has been saved by them) and upstairs and stake our claim on a leather lounge. I feel like something savoury as I’ve missed out on lunch whereas Queen Viv feels like something sweet so we get a bit of each and share it. As I’m ordering an iced coffee comes out and it looks inviting so I order one of those too.
Iced Coffee $5.50
I love the iced coffee, even a decaffeinated one as it’s late in the day. It is enthusiastically devoured by yours truly and the ice cream seems to have swirls of caramel in it which always helps matters.
Steak and Onion Confit sandwich $12.50
I was a bit worried about the amount of breadage on the sandwich when it was sitting in the display cabinet but not to worry they buttered the outside and grilled it (the way I like to do grilled cheese sandwiches at home) so that it was fabulously soft and buttery on the tongue. The steak and confit of onions go very well along with the tomato and baby spinach. The whole sandwich is huge and I vow to skip dinner after finishing my share of this.
Frangipane tart $4.80
My over eager but well meaning stylist Queen Viv cuts the cakes into half before realising that I haven’t taken a photo and is mortified. I chuckle and tell her that we can do a good patch job where no-one will notice – right? 
The Frangipane tart is filled with rhubarb and a light almond frangipane. It’s not bad but needs an aromatic in it as the taste would be best described as sweet.
Caramel Kiss $3.80
The caramel kiss pastry is quite heavy and would be great if it were a short buttery pastry. The caramel filling is delicious but the chocolate on top is a chocolate mint chocolate which doesn’t go very well with the caramel.
A bit of browsing and I pick up a book for a gift (bookstores are always so hard to walk out of empty handed).
So tell me Dear Reader, what was the last book that you bought or read? And would you recommend it?
Berkelouw Bookstore Cafe
6-8 O’Connell St, Newtown NSW
Tel: +61 (02) 9557 1777
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55 Comments | Add your own
I could live here.
Oh I really like the idea of bookstores like this. Definately better than places like Angus and Robertson.
What a gorgeous place to while away an afternoon – it looks so cosy.
I love a place with wooden chairs on a wood floor.
What a wonderful combination of books and food… and the atmosphere is so inviting… you just want to sit in that big leather chair and read with a plate of something lovely by your side!!! I definitely know who to ask for suggestions when I tour Australia~
Last Chance to See, by Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine. Absolutely loved it!
Lorraine, nothing like yummie food to complement the books…love frangipane…yum yum!
I love cafes in bookstores! That steak sandwich is a ginormous serving of goodness!!! One of my favourites is Berkelouw in Leichhardt… wine bar, anyone?
I love the steel plates – all the hipsters are doing them these days.
Decaffeintated for later in the day is sound advice. I wish I had followed this over the weekend. I am still recovering.
I will have to check this cafe out soon. Comfy leather couch season is nearly upon us.
SSG xxx
PS – have you been to Glace? For icecream? I’m going to blog my photos in the next couple of days. Deluxe.
Book stores that serve food reside in a no man’s land between the ultimate Peter Pan Happy place and a hurt locker. So very hard to leave…and whenever you do your wallet is so much lighter… Last book I bought was Matthew Evans’ The Real Food Companion. Is current bed time reading and I’m just loving it.
This looks like the type of place I could curl up in and stay for hours! That iced coffee with caramel-swirl ice cream sounds divine…I’ll definitely be replicating that one at home!
OOH how luscious that place looks!!!
Love the coffee these guys churn out and it’s such a nice place just to lounge back and escape the bustle for a while
I don’t mind if you go there – but don’t tell everyone, it was my secret place. Had lunch there last week and often drop in for a quiet coffee – compared to the rest of the Newtown coffee places it’s not so rowdy. But you can’t stop progress and people. I love my ‘hood’ the inner west rocks.
I used to live in that street. I think this used to be an old school wool and knitting store. Happy they have turned it into something so lovely. Must go back and visit my old hood…
this place looks really nice d love to come here on a lazy sunday afternoon :O)
I love bookstores and one that has a cafe is always a winner!! I have just bought “Lunch in Paris” it is a great read, a love story set in Paris amongst the glamorous shops and mouth-watering Patisseries- it even contains a some french recipes! x
This looks amazing – just my kind of place.
If anyone is looking for a great book to read, I strongly urge you to buy yourself a copy of “Jasper Jones” – AMAZING.
Hmmm…the ice coffee looks devine.
I love the wooden floors and brick walls, and the armchair looks very comforting! Your sandwich looks delicious too!
I visited on my last trip to Sydney
I actually have a photo of their most delicious brownie waiting to be uploaded!!!
The last book I read was ‘Fartsy Claus’ (I read it to my son) and I highly recommend it. A cautionary tale – never leave beans and franks out for Santa. I know it’s not really the right season but kids just don’t care.
Love love LOVE Berkelouw! Last book I bought – Five on a Treasure Island for my eldest boy.. Can’t wait to read it to him!
Totally diggin the atmosphere here. Something like this Melb would be great. And yes, I’m a ‘butter the outside of the toast’ when sandwich pressed guy.
I love the look of this cozy cafe so casual and comfortable. My two great loves being food and books it could be my version of heaven
The last book I bought was for my bookclub, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. So far so good quite chilling.
This place looks so cool, I’ll have to check it out at some stage. The leather chais looks so comfy. I love book stores like this. Two things I enjoy the most books & food together.
The last book I read was the Twilight Series, & yes I totally can recommend them.
That armchair is just begging to be curled up in with a good book. Not terribly taken with the food here but I like the look of the place.
The last book I read is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for my book club as we wanted to go and see the film together. Really enjoyed the book and film… transported me back to lovely Sweden even though this particular version of Sweden was a little…uh,. violent.
Yet another reason I need to visit Australia. This shop looks so cute. All we have by my house are massive chains.
lovely looking place, must write it down on my long list of places to visit
This is my dream come true…books, antiquity, and good drinks and food. LOVE the sandwich.
I should have explored Newtown more when I was there every single day for uni! Love cafes in book stores (they make me feel.. lets say more well read than I actually am *shy*). Last book I read “The other boleyn girl” – have always been fascinated by the king who ‘invented’ divorce!
The last book I bought and read was the last book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris.
I would definately recommend this series!
Another good bookstore in Newtown is Pimento but, alas, it doesn’t have an upstairs coffee shop like this one!
Just read this straight after your previous post. I thought I read that the ice cream had “swirls of camel” in it. Had to look twice!
All the Dragon Tattoo books, loved all three and can’t wait to see the Swedish film of the first book !
I love cafes that have books, such a great way to spend a lazy weekend!
oh no–the tart was nearly devoured before picture-taking could commence! i’m glad she caught herself in time, as it’s my favorite thing of all that you two ate.
I agree love shops that allow you to eat and shop all in one.
As a librarian I can get all the books I want to read for free so I rarely buy books
At the moment I am reading The Red Tent by Anna Diamant, His Illegal Self by Peter Carey and Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster and would recommend them all.
AHHHH memories!! I absolutely LOVE this place! I used to live on King Street in Newtown and my best friend on Carillon Ave, and we’d walk down O’Connell to get to each other’s house. One day we met half way at Berkelouw and fell in love with it. What a charming, rustic, cosy place with yummy food and drinks! x
Was a real bookworm in my single days but hubby doesn’t like the light on ( not even a booklight) so don’t get much of a chance to read as my days are very full, I barely have time to scratch.
The last book I read was an autobiography by Randy Pausch titled “The Last Lecture”. I believe everyone should read this sad but poignant book, especially people that worry too much about petty, insignificant things in life.
just grabbed a pile of books, Eat Ate by Guy Mirabella, and I like you by Amy Sedaris, and Gourmet by Ruth Reichl
love it how they butter the outside of the sandwich before they grill it! and just like you, i find it hard to resist a cafe that sells books; i tend to always leave with one.
i just finished gordon ramsay’s autobiography last night, ‘humble pie’ – it’s definitely worth a read because it reveals so much about gordon that you wouldn’t have known otherwise.
I want that chair, and the brown rice quinoa salad on the menu, and boooooks! I miss books! They just take up too much space in the suitcase. So the last book I bought was a Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse novel (fun
), but I also have Bleak House as a PDF on my computer.
The book I always want to recommend, though, is The Book Thief – amazing.
Well that’s an inducement to travel down under like nothing else. Foodie bookshops are my idea of heaven!
I love the idea of Rhubarb frangipane and I’m sad to hear it didn’t work so well. We have a thing called an Ashet pie here – usually with mutton, but unsalted the pastry is also used for rhubarb and it is a thing of great joy – and I wonder if that would work better with the frangipane instead of the top. I’ll need to do some digging, I think it’s a lard-based pastry but I’m not sure!
Oh what a lovely idea to have a bookstore cafe serving delicious food. I bet it’s hard to get out from that place.
Lately I ordered the BBA, I am really enjoying every page, I truly recommend it if any one interested in bread making and baking.
Iced coffee with real ice cream! Yummmmo. I’ll bet that steak sandwich went down well with the iced coffee.
ok i could do with that cafe just round the corner from me in London too! What a nice place to hang out, with that awesome looking frangipane tart and iced coffee!
That looks like such a cozy place to hang out! For some strange reason it reminds me of “Shop Around the Corner” in You’ve Got Mail.
I’ve been to the Berkelouw Cafe on Oxford St…to look around (and use their bathroom! LOL)…but I haven’t been to the one in Newtown. Looks nicer, and more spread out than Paddington. That chair is gorgeous!! I seriously need to get to Newtown just to sit in that chair! LOL
That iced coffee looks amazing…with real ice cream as well? Always a good thing!!
I’ve been pretty slack with my reading lately…I’ve got two books that I’m part-way through – one of them is called “The Scent Trail”, a non-fiction book about a lady who’s getting a custom perfume made…and she decides to go all over the world to find out about the ingredients that are going in her perfume. It’s really only something you’d be interested in if you’re in the fragrance industry, I guess. Some parts are interesting…but she’s a bit too descriptive at times…especially about things that really don’t need to be described in such detail!
The other book I’m reading is called “About Angels and You” by Barry Chant. It’s interesting to find out about who & what angels really are…it’s only a short book, but it’s taken me a while to get through, just because I’ve re-read parts of it…I recommend this one.
I love all these comments with reading recommendations, there are definitely some other vampire lovers out there. As an added bonus the cafe welcomes book groups. Our latest title: The Witch of Portobello by Paul Coelho.
Oh, I know what you mean! It’s so hard for me to walk out of a bookstore without purchasing something and then I end up having a whole stack of books that I haven’t even touched yet!
The sandwich looks yum, did you end up having dinner? 
oh my god. This place could easily be my favourite cafe!! In my good old college days back in Boston, I’ve spent way too much time hanging out at a bookstore cafe.
LOL @ patch job – sounds very familiar to me too haha
The last time I went in here they had a jazz quintet playing in the corner as well. Where else but Newtown could you go in Sydney on a normal Wednesday afternoon and combine that with a coffee, food, and an awesome second hand bookstore.
My most recent read is “The New Tea Companion” by Jane Pettigrew & Bruce Richardson, a guide to teas throughout the world. It has many fascinating tea facts that I didn’t know about and is a definitive look at many amazing teas that I have never heard of.I am still enjoying it and thoroughly recommend it for all tea addicts like me..smile
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