Cucina Espresso Concord — Restaurant in Sydney

Cucina Espresso has racked up nearly eight years of operation. You’ll find the family-run café in Concord’s main shopping strip, which takes up the better part of three blocks of Majors Bay Road. Cafes and restaurants make up a good many of the businesses in this strip, so competition for the weekend breakfast spend is fierce. Cucina Espresso have risen to the challenge with an expanded menu of unique breakfast items, all while keeping a core menu for the bacon-and-eggs brigade.

Rather than employing fusion, chef Carlo Calautti’s menu innovations are unified by staying faithful to Italianate flavours and techniques. His Breakfast Arancini ($16.90) is a moment of pure genius. To make it, Calautti captures a soft poached egg and a scoop of mixed mushrooms inside a porcini and truffle-infused potato and rice arancini. It’s presented on an artful splat of truffle porcini cream, with Bacon ($2), if you so desire. Cutting into the beautifully crumbed ovoid sees oozing golden yolk mingle beautifully with the earthy, creamy flavours of the truffle cream. While the price might seem expensive for a reasonably small breakfast, it accurately reflects the amount of work that goes into making this clever dish.

Saturday sees this popular café bustling with business, both takeaway and eat-in, with many opting to sit in the narrow but attractively kitted out interior. Despite the cold and windy day, we opt to sit outside at their sidewalk tables, and quickly attended to by friendly staff who get a heater lit for us, and the gas bottle changed as soon it extinguishes.

Coffee, made on quality Little Marionette roasted beans, arrives promptly and is well made, across both a Caffe Latte ($4) and a Flat White ($4) with an Extra Shot ($0.50). Additional beverages are offered without the need to flag down staff.

We’re told chilli oil is the most requested item at Cucina Espresso by a friendly waitress, who procures us some immediately to go with our baked eggs. This is another category where Calautti has worked his magic, kicking off with the usual tomato-based offering, and adapting it into six different baked egg renditions.

Uovo Aglio, Olio e Peperoncini ($18) sees the eggs baked in extra virgin olive oil, Mexican garlic, chill, parsley and buffalo mozzarella, then topped with shaved grana Padano. For an extra five bucks you can throw in moist curls of quality prosciutto and wild rocket leaves. This dish feels both fresh and satisfying when scraped onto the toasted pane di casa that surrounds it, and it sings against the lovely green chilli oil our waitress presented.

Calautti has also played around with eggs Benedict, switching out the muffins for Italian rice and potato croquettes. While there are four different renditions, I’m particularly delighted to be eating the Croquette Mushroom Benedict ($18), because it sits on a bed of beautifully sautéed mushrooms. The fungi are cooked so well it prompts me to say that Cucina Espresso is really a restaurant masquerading as a café, run by a chef, not a cook. I particularly like the way Calautti has implemented menu change in a community-minded way, to ensure both old and new Concord residents and visitors can eat the breakfast they’re...

Cucina espresso located in the leafy suburb of Concord and is only 20 minutes from the Sydney CBD. Although not a suburb you'd usually pass through unless you live in the area, Cucina Espresso is definitely worth making an effort to visit. The cafè is very popular with locals, we arrived mid morning on a Sunday and the cafe was thriving with customers. We initially sat inside and waited for a table outside, with the staff accomodating when it became available. A delightful place to sit and enjoy our breakfast. It was a rainy day, but luckily kept dry by the overhead awnings. The owners very hospitable to everyone visiting their cafe and I understand why locals would keep coming back. We were informed it would be about 30-40 minutes wait due to the high volume of guests but we could order a drink while we waited. It's great to be informed. It also didn't take that long to get our food.

The menu is extremely extensive and something for everyone, healthy options, a huge range of baked eggs and also sweet and decadent choices too. There is a wide range for lunch, but on this occasion we sampled the breakfast menu.

In a group, we were lucky to be able to share a few different items from the menu. A lighter choice to start with - the 'buckinis' or granola clusters with yoghurt and fruit, beautifully arranged and quite colourful.

This was followed by a breakfast burger with brioche bread and was very reasonably priced. We were impressed by the beetroot cured salmon done in house, sitting atop avocado served on pane di casa an Italian style of bread.

Then came the stars of the show; the famous baked eggs. Unlike any baked eggs you've seen before, the Italian styled baked eggs are huge and they have five varieties. The hearty Uovo Bolognese e Piselli which is eggs poached in a beef bolognese sauce with peas, grana padano cheese and buffalo mozzarella served with pane di casa.

Our favourite being the Uovo Cotto - it was eggs baked in a creamy white sauce with porchini mushroom, black truffle, potato mash and shaved grana padano cheese, topped with crispy bacon shreds and pane di casa - the taste was equivalent to a carbonara. Both were huge sizes so very reasonable for the price. On my next visit id like to try the one with pork fennel sausage.

The Nutella pancakes were another great option recommended if you have a sweet tooth. You definitely get your nutella fix with these, not only were they topped with nutella, it was also in the pancake mixture too. This was served with vanilla gelato, strawberries and fresh mint.

No fuss decor, Italian vibe to the styling and the counter also sells some goods to go. Great food on offer here and we certainly recommend a visit and in particular the baked eggs as a must. We'd like to thank Cucina espresso for the invitation and the management and staff for their...

Realised this Italian cafe has quite a good review, decided to give it a try

Environment 3/5 Given 3 because of the flies, we had a seat outside and due to the summer I guess, the flies are just too annoying, not really the cafe’s fault though

Service 3/5 Our waiting time for the food, I think is just too long. We had the coffee after about 10 minutes, but the food came after more than 30 minutes.

Long black/ cappuccino 3/5 A bit too sour for me, nothing too fancy

Granita 4/5 Is a sorbet drink/ dessert. They had this lemon flavoured granita for this week special, quite like it. Good for after food.

Ham benedict 2.5/5 Was expecting something fancy from this with the price charged, but it was a disappointment. Eggs are perfectly cooked, ham is chilled ham. Nothing special about this dish.

Uovo Rosso E Ricotta 4/5 First time having this Italian dish, is quite special. Egg baked with napoleon sauce and topped with difference cheese. If you like cheese this is something you can try.

Will I come back again? 2.5/5 Is a 50-50 kinda feeling, there’s other dishes to try, but the waiting time and the flies are...