‘Chock-a-block’: This tiny suburb’s new cafe filled with locals minutes after opening

Previous SlideNext Slide

Wareemba, a tiny suburb beside Five Dock, is no stranger to bakery-cafes, with three established venues in its five-street-wide environs.

But residents’ anticipation for Martha’s, a boutique cafe-bakery on the main street, was so strong that tables were full minutes after it officially opened in September.

Co-owner Paris Nassif has posted only one photo on the cafe’s Instagram page, and now, with Martha’s chock-a-block all weekend, she’s decided to go slow with publicity.

“Over four or five months, passersby were watching us renovate the venue,” she says. “And then they just came out of the woodwork. We haven’t really needed to share on our socials much at all.”

Nassif, whose family is also behind Bar Biscotti in North Strathfield, has thought long and hard about every aspect of Martha’s. The rich burgundy of the exterior tiles was the dominant hue of her wedding in January. An illuminated “Martha’s” street sign is an origami-like unfolded cake box shape that twins with the cafe interior’s serene pale yellow.

The name is particularly personal, drawn from Martha, a biblical figure in the gospels of Luke and John, known as the patron saint of hospitality.

“Her intention is always to put food on the table, be hospitable and share love — all things I resonate with,” Nassif says.

Nassif’s main aim is to bring her heritage into the succinct menu of baked sweet and savoury pastries and bread roll and toast-based dishes.

“My family comes from a Palestinian background and my grandmother and all her sisters and brothers are big, big cooks,” Nassif says. “I grew up with her and my uncle, always a full dinner table. We’ve incorporated the spice and aromatic flavours that I’ve grown up with in all our food.”

This means cardamom and rosewater almond croissants dappled with rose petals; ham and cheese croissants tooth-picked with whole jalapenos and a deeply dense cinnamon and olive oil cake that oozes with moisture.

There’s spiced kofta with zingy caponata, tzatziki, pickled turnip and rocket on a crunchy roll; rich, soft taramasalata on rye bread and a zaatar and goat’s cheese knot served with tahini dipping sauce.

The latter is a bona-fide winner, its dough swirl’s interior swathed with gooey fermented cheese, subtle oregano, sumac and toasted sesame seed flavours, all smushing marvellously into whip-smooth tahini.

There’s also Martha’s take on the pastry-of-the-moment, the cinnamon scroll, delivered here as a liberally sugar-flecked marvel subtly fired with a selection of Middle Eastern spices Nassif prefers to keep a secret.

Less secret is the cafe’s dedicated focus on coffee, warranting a separate counter area and a standing espresso bar with sparkling water on tap. It also features two self-serve taps, today serving a peach and apricot cold brew and a maple brown butter latte.

Today, the latter inspires cries of “ooh, this is like America” from a customer drinking a sample, and they’re right (in a good way).

Maple brown butter suggests an unbearable teeth-jangling sweetness but this brew’s sugariness is balanced, subtly caramel, toffee-like and still punching the caffeine. I am less convinced by the vanilla foam-topped orange and cardamom cold brew – the citrus separated the milk in my drink.

But there’s nothing wrong with the doolally sweet cinnamon scroll cold brew or the super creaminess of Spanish latte made with condensed milk.

“We’re definitely passionate about food and baking, but we wanted to showcase coffee as a star too,” Nassif says. “It sometimes gets lost in cafes, but here, we wanted it to shine.”

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.