New King William Street cafè - the aptly titled Colab - brings together luminaries from across the spectrum of Adelaide's hospitality scene in a Renew Adelaide space, for a limited time only.
Introducing: Colab for breakfast, lunch and coffee
Colab seemed to appear overnight.
Visit the Colab team for a coffee, some breakfast or lunch at 1 King William Street, Adelaide between 7.30am – 4pm, Monday to Friday.
Stop in for the $1 coffee morning this Friday (April 10) between 9am-11am, or come along to the launch night on April 24 from 5pm for pintxos, Delinquente wine, Pikes beer and coffee cupping by Dawn Patrol coffee roasters.
Occupying the very recently vacated space on the ground floor of 1 King William Street, Adelaide (formerly Un Caffe Bar), it opened on Tuesday with no period of papered-out windows or clanging power tools to herald its arrival.
The lack of visible renovation time is explained by the fact the café and all-day breakfast/lunch spot was built in a single weekend. The team behind the project received the keys last Tuesday, began work on Good Friday and had completed the overhaul by Easter Monday.
“There wasn’t much of a discussion about it,” says Delinquente Wine Co’s Con-Greg Grigoriou – one of many collaborators behind the project.
“We got offered the space by Renew Adelaide and it was just a case of asking: ‘Do you want to do it?’, and we decided ‘yes’. And then ok, we got on with it.”
Colab brings together Con-Greg with chef Michael Proud (most recently of Sad Cafe and Lazy Susan Lunch Club and formerly of Magill Estate), new South Australian coffee roaster Dawn Patrol, interior stylist Lynlee Hannan, pastry from Abbots & Kinney and meats from San Jose Smallgoods.
The speedy fit-out was facilitated, in true collaborative style, by hard work from all of the above and help from local carpenter Luke Evans, who built furniture for the space using reclaimed timber he had lying about the place.
The idea for creating something like Colab together had been around for a while – the team had previously looked into other Renew Adelaide spaces that didn’t quite fit. But when the King William spot became available for 3 – 6 months after scheduled building renovations were pushed back, it seemed like the perfect fit for what they wanted to do.
“It was always about Michael cooking the food that Michael wanted to cook,” says Con-Greg.
The all-day menu Michael is serving consists of simple, light, classic dishes that have been extended in interesting directions. Thus far CityMag has tried the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, which comes with coffee mayonnaise, and the scrambled eggs with ocean trout and avocado. We would recommend both, but would recommend the eggs and trout even if it were to be your last meal – it is particularly excellent.
Colab also serves as an introduction to Dawn Patrol’s coffee. Launching their range of ethically-sourced and carefully roasted blends at the cafè, business partners Dom Ossa and Nick Suggit hope to engage Adelaide with the brand before expanding Dawn Patrol’s remit.
For his part, Con-Greg will be pouring his Delinquente wines at monthly(ish) Friday night events where he will also curate beverages from other local producers.
“The first event will be on April 24th – it’s our Renew Adelaide launch party and we’ll be pouring Delinquente,” he says. “We’ll also have beer from Pikes and Mike is going to do some pintxos – so they’ll all be lined up on the counter though and you go and grab what you want for about $2 each.”
See you there.