Best café

Winner

Café Sopra, Waterloo

Waterloo's Café Sopra is the ultimate lunch spot. No matter what you got up to the night before and regardless of whether you've actually seen the inside of your own room, the café upstairs from Fratelli Fresh -  Sydney's most exciting fruit and vegetorium - is always a welcome haven. Chef Andy Bunn has created a menu that changes daily (sometimes hourly) and though it's vegetable-centric, it's not vegetarian. You won't find your average Big Brekky here. Instead of sausage, egg and beans you're more likely to find a goat's cheese frittata - the egg just set and garnished with micro herbs - or a suckling pig panino (a godsend to the hung over).

Sopra is all about sharing. Half the fun with the food, which is Italian-leaning with touches such as banoffee pie and chips for breakfast (Bunn's a Brit), is ordering lots of different things for the table and having an individual buffet. You can also be assured that everything's fresh, as Andy picks everything from the shop below as he needs it. There are no bookings, so you'll need to either turn up early (anytime after noon and you've got no hope) or do what we do: get one person to line up while you go shopping downstairs. Want more? Book the private table. It seats at least ten and it's $60 per person for an afternoon of eating and drinking mayhem. They also have a café and shop in Potts Point, if Waterloo is too far.

Runners-up

Deus ex Machina, Camperdown
A mix of industrial design and cool art (the owner is Mambo founder Dare Jennings), Deus is more order-and-pay than silver service, but the table runners are super-nice and their hotdogs and milkshakes are ace.

Wall, Surry Hills
Wall cranks out 800 coffees a day. That means heaven for hardcore espresso and milk coffee lovers alike. They also do a good range in sandwiches.

Ruby's Diner, Waverley
Owner and cool café veteran Ed Devlin is no stranger to the coffee machine and he's using Single Origin - the serious stuff. There's also something of a buzz about their $13 burgers. Don't miss the killer shakes and sangas or the all-organic sweets.

Kazbah, Balmain
Better known for its amazing breakfast degustation, this Balmain stalwart also offers dinner. Eastern brekkie dishes include a lamb breakfast tagine with Turkish toast, pita bread and squeeze of lemon or foul (pronounced like fool) medammes. Yum. 

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