Where café meets craft The Press Club is a Bespoke letterpress shop and integrated café in the stunning setting of Bowral in the Southern Highlands. Locally owned, they source and prepare quality food and focus on using small farmers, producers and local supplies and organic food in order to best highlight what the Southern Highlands region has to offer. With fruits and vegetables from Moonacres farm, Piccolo Farm, Highlands organics, Brillig Farm, Living Earth Farm Truffles from Robertson truffles, olive oil from white chapel grove, mushrooms from Li-Sun, meats from maugers and Robertson village butchery, eggs from Taulca Park, honey from the Honey Collector, this café really shows respect to their local area. Head chef Nathan West has put together a delightful menu using these fine ingredients, and the meals tasted so fresh and were absolutely beautifully presented on the plate. Lunch is served from 12 – 3. As we were in a group, we were able to sample a few of the menu items. We would describe this as simple food, done in a very elegant way, showcasing the skills and vision of an inspired chef.

The Waffles were served at a nice lunch size, not overbearing like many cafés these days. Topped with a refreshing coconut sorbet, peaches, mint and a white chocolate crumble. This dish is vegan and dairy free. The local greens frittata was laid on the plate atop a goats curd and decorated with herbs and lovely thin slices of potato crisp. The potato gnocchi was incredible. Served with new season tomatoes, roast onion puree, vino cotto and herbs, this dish is perfect for everyone, including vegetarian and vegan diners. Something the males of your group will love (as well as anyone else) is the Taluca Pork free range Cuban Sandwich with pickles. Fresh bread, great meat and served cut in half with cheese and a side of cucumber and herbs. There’s also a roasted carrot dish, zucchini salad, beef brisket sandwich, eggs benedict and even a kiddies menu. I’m presuming this menu would change seasonally. Drinks wise, the coffee was great too. Speciality coffee, using beans from Cultivar, who source these from Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Costa Rica. You can have a regular milk based coffee, filter coffee, or a flavoured one like turmeric, matcha, velvet (beetrrot) or a hot choc. Organic teas, wild-grown herbal teas, house made iced tea, kobmucha and milkshakes are also on the menu. At the back of the café is a beautiful letter press shop selling handcrafted papers, cards and other lovely gifts. You can also see the letterpress machines and can understand the work that goes into making products of this quality in the old fashioned way. It’s lovely to see them preserving this century old art form. Come for a few meals, coffee and leave with a satisfied belly and a few handicraft purchases.