Recess Coffee Canberra

Recess Coffee is a cute retro cafe in Griffith, Canberra serving up delicious breakfasts and lunches including breakfast burritos, fried chicken sandwiches an incredible buttermilk pancake. Come along as we visit for breakfast and check out the vibe!

"You'll love Recess" says Laura. She's my Canberra expert as her boyfriend Adrian lived there for a couple of years and she would spend half of the week in Canberra. During that time they had scoped out many of Canberra's food offerings. Recess coffee is one of them.

We were all prepared to queue but this Sunday there are some tables free inside. There's also some outdoor tables as well.

The theme here is retro and vinyl - that is record vinyl from the turntable and the music playing (currently: Lionel Richie). We are situated in the front circular banquette although there are plenty of booth seating contributing to the retro vibe. The menu is square and shaped like a record sleeve and holds many treasures but I go with Laura's recommendations since this was one of her favourite cafes when she lived here.

We start with drinks: matcha iced latte for me and a vanilla malt mikshake for her. Service is friendly but for some reason Laura has to ask for her coffee three times and if she weren't already 5 shots of coffee deep, this would have been very frustrating. My matcha latte is strong in matcha powder and unsweetened.

The breakfast burrito did cause a bit of confusion with Laura's capsicum allergy. The salsa is the only thing with capsicum but the aji verde sauce is also served on the side so I do a bit of dipping and filling to try and recreate it as it was. The house made turkey sausage, scrambled eggs, cheese, hash brown, avocado do need the piquancy from the salsa criolla although the salsa does need some salt to draw out the flavour. Nevertheless it's a solid burrito on a very soft tortilla wrap that is filling too.

The fried chicken sandwich is nice and juicy thanks to the use of chicken thigh although the chicken is taken darker than we both like so that takes away some of the moisture and adds a stronger approaching burnt flavour. It's served on white sourdough which is nice and fresh as well as cheese, pickles, yuzu mayonnaise and iceberg lettuce.

While the savouries are nice enough, the item that I really enjoy is the buttermilk pancake. It's a single enormous plate sized pancake with the option of jam, cream, ice cream or syrup on the side. Today's jam is pear and strawberry and the pancake itself has a quennelle of butter on top that slowly melts. The pancake itself is buttery and pan fried in plenty of butter which is what gives it its crispy moreishness. The jam is great with it as is the maple syrup and even though I don't often order pancakes this is an incredibly delicious pancake that we almost entirely polish off between the two of us. Neither of us would normally choose pancakes, they're the sort of thing I would order for Mr NQN and she for her boyfriend but I can't wait to try to recreate it when I get home!

So tell me Dear Reader, how often do you order pancakes when eating out? And what drink do you reach for first thing in the morning?

This meal was independently paid for.

Recess Coffee

6B Barker St, Griffith ACT 2603

Monday to Friday 6:30 am–3:30 pm

Saturday & Sunday 7:30 am–3 pm