As we live and work in Brunswick, we can often go the whole working week without leaving the suburb, save for Saturday when we roll up to Rose Street Market in Fitzroy. You would think we would get cabin fever but often we don't notice until we pop into the city and realise we have not been there in ages. Since moving to our current office two years ago, we now travel over Sydney Road to get to our office from Lygon Street and this has made our Brunswick experience a whole lot better.
I remember over a year ago, although it feels like a lot less than that, I was walking along Sydney Road just over Albert Street and spotted an almost open By Josephine. I think I snapped a pic and took it back to show Gareth as I was pretty excited. I think the all white decor appealed the part of me that day dreams about running my own cafe. I know I am not alone in this day dream and I am sure it has crossed everyone in Melbourne's mind at one time or another and it is probably a good question to ask people at a dinner party, so, what would your cafe/restaurant/bar be like?
Over the last year we have been a few times and Gareth loves it for one slightly unusual reason. They make really good decaf coffee.
Gareth decided to quit caffeine a few years ago in a move some in Melbourne might call utterly ridiculous. Gareth however doesn't care that his people are scorned, in fact he wants to bring everyone over to the slightly less perky dark side and the decaf flat white at By Josephine is in his artillery to win the war on caffeine. Sadly his battle with me was lost, although the coffee was lovely, I won't be breaking up with the big C just yet.
Cake is another big C we are both a fan of and we got one of these big round coconuty balls called a Merveilleux to share. We were told what lay within and how to say it, but armed with this information I was still excited to cut inside and see what was going on. The mixture of chocolate, meringue and cream was interesting, fun and yum and perfect for the coffee, both caffeinated and non caffeinated.
If you're not a big sweets fans, they also have a savoury lunch menu which we have not tried, but sounds really good. But who are we kidding, we go for the cake!
You can find By Josephine here:
356 Sydney Road
Brunswick
3056 Victoria
And you can like them on Facebook here.