The Pool Cafe

This has to be one of the most attractively placed cafes in town. Sitting right across the road from Maroubra's natural rock pools, this tiny building stands tall against a sapphire blue sky. The tiny space is filled with girls in their togs with sandy feet and patchy wet dresses after coming straight from the sea, older women in muslin and board shorts galore.

The waitstaff are looking harried as the coffee machine gets a good workout out front while out back sauté pans are being pulled off their butcher hooks with surprising speed and dexterity. The coffee here is great - plenty of guts, lots of flavour and the right temperature, too. But the breakfast menu though sound, isn't all that special.

The eggs are beautifully poached but they're served with not great chorizo (a type of cured Spanish sausage), a dice of red capsicum that's redundant and Turkish toast, bereft of any lubricant - a brush of oil could really make this dish. Pancakes with grilled banana and maple syrup look great but are so sodden in syrup that they're hard to eat for all that sweetness. It would've been nice to see some butter there, too.

But for all that, it's a great breakfast spot and the food's secondary after a dip and a frappe or milkshake. There's a dinner menu that we'll be going back for, with dishes like baby beetroot, fennel and hazelnuts and master stock braised beef. Worth checking out if you're in the area.