Can’t quite work out whether you’re a morning person or a night owl? Looking for somewhere for a coffee before work or a cocktail in the wee hours? Then a new venue that caters for all your personalities is the place to be.
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Alter Ego, on the corner of Genge and Bunda Streets in the city, where Cream Bar and Cafe was, is broken into different zones to cater for all types of dining, whether it’s an intimate date, casual dining or high-end private dining.
Owner Arthur Choi, who also runs a number of venues including Coffee Lab and Coffee Grounds, has secured Michael Chatto, formerly of Italian and Sons, as executive chef and the pair have designed a menu to celebrate global cuisine.
“We know that people tend to have two personalities,” Choi says.
“We built this concept for our venue so we can focus on both day and night options. We’ll serve coffee and wine, breakfast and dinner. People can arrange to have their work meetings at the Alter or they can enjoy a night out and catch up with friends.
“Alter Ego will be a venue for the people and for any occasion. Whether it is a quick coffee before work, date night, dinner with a group of friends or lunch with the family. The menu offering, interior design and seating options cater for all.”
Patrons will be able to find a spot in outdoor spaces, a small private dining room, bar seating, bench seating or at communal tables.
Alter Ego will also have a focus on coffee, with three different ONA Coffee blends to choose from including Hitman, Founder and Single Origin.
There will also be filtered coffee and frozen coffee – more specifically, frozen coffee beans - for anyone who wants to try something different. Freezing coffee is a phenomenon that is increasing in popularity in the specialty coffee world. The team at ONA Coffee have developed a process that will allow for a wider and more vibrant range of coffees to choose from.
The beans are frozen after roasting and can be stored for use at a later date. This will allow customers to choose from the flavour profiles they like and have been looking forward to trying, or enjoying again.
The drinks menu features an extensive range of local beers, wines and spirits as well as international options. There are also morning cocktails and an espresso martini tap that pours the coffee vodka that was made in collaboration with award-winning Underground Spirits and Bellerophon Coffee.
The breakfast menu will feature an eggs benedict bar with five different types of eggs benedict available. Kobe beef, purple cabbage, eggs, charred paprika with horseradish hollandaise, and wild mushroom, eggs, sautéed broccoli, pistachio, haloumi snow with blue cheese hollandaise are two of the options.
Lunch will be a condensed version of the dinner menu and will also include a selection of burgers including the double truff-able burger with truffled mac and cheese, and the dirty chicken burger.
Chatto says the menu will focus on the best possible produce.
“It will be accessible to people who want a quick cheese plate or fresh sashimi, to special occasion dinners and the chef’s choice degustation menu,” Chatto says.
“We will also be sourcing local pasture-fed meat.”
Some of the dinner options will include Kobe flank charred with café de paris, tataki of blue fin tuna with seaweed dressing and crispy caper, Persian lamb, pomegranate, barley and mint salad, chicken katsu super-fried Korean chicken, shredded wombok slaw with teriyaki mayonnaise.
A smaller selection of dishes will be available between 3pm and 5pm. The kitchen will stay open from 10am until midnight on Friday and Saturday nights and a selection of late night eats including cheese plates, dumplings and burgers will be available.
Alter Ego, open Sunday to Wednesday, 7.30am-11.30pm, Thursday 7.30am-1.30am, Friday and Saturday 7.30am-2.30am.
