Our Breakfast Club

Greenhouse, City

Eco-conscious and inner-city almost has it right

Greenhouse St. Georges Terrace is the second of it’s kind in Australia, and is the concept-turned-reality brainchild of designer Joost Bakker. Teaming up with Perth-based restauranteer Paul Aron, and 2005′s Barista of the Year Jason Chan, Greenhouse is a funky inner city restaurant with a strong eco focus.

The space isn’t your average by any regard – most of it is made from recycled plastic and plywood, there’s hay bales in the walls and roof for insulation, the floor contains recycled plastic containers, and the entire exterior is lined with strawberry plants. Oh, did I mention the rooftop garden which grows fresh, seasonal produce for the use downstairs in the kitchen? Ingenious. More about Greenhouse’s background can be found here.

Opening in early December, we’d all been eager to check out Greenhouse’s offerings and show support for the new breed of CBD bars and restaurants popping up. We managed to get most of the team together (sans Michelle) for an early mid-week breakfast on New Year’s Eve. After bus delays due to the Horseshoe Bridge diversions, we perched on one of the raised tables near the door, placed all our bags in the handy seat compartments and began the pre-order gossip.

Even our drinks show signs of Greenhouse’s eco-message: orange juice is served in recycled glass containers (the type you’d expect to find hydorchloric acid in during High School Chemistry). There’s an old jar with a plant growing on the table, and the light ‘fittings’ are twisted metal fencing.

• 1x Eggs and soldiers – $8
• 1x Scrambled eggs on toast, + mushrooms + potato bravis – $8 + $4.50 + $3.50
• 1x Poached eggs – $8
• 1x Poached eggs, + bacon + potato bravis – $8 + $4.50 + $3.50
• 3x flat white, 1x long mac
• 1x orange juice

Bread (house milled hard wheat from Eden Valley Biodynamic) is cut thick – some may argue a tad too thick given the size of the toppings. Eggs were cooked to perfection, and there’s something special about the poached eggs that we just couldn’t pick. Eggs are sourced from Magaret River Free Range Organic, bacon from Linley Valley Pork, and the yoghurt is made in-house using milk from Caprino Farm. All meals were beautifully presented and the kitchen seemed to have no problem keeping up with the medium-sized morning crowd.

Potato bravis was a major disappointment. Usually served with a tomato relish, Greenhouse serve it on it’s own and it’s extremely dry, almost to the point of being uncomfortable to eat. Deliciously spicy but simply too dry to be served solo. Two of us also commented that the coffee tasted like dishwashing chemicals – buh bow. Let’s hope that was just a minor glitch in the Matrix.

We snuck a peek at the upstairs area – it’s beautiful! An excellent view otherwise unobtainable from St Georges Terrace unless you work in one of the many office buildings. The exterior is lined with the herbs and various vegetables used downstairs (although not quite fully matured yet), with a large bar on the other end. Our waitress mentioned that they were having trouble ‘figuring out’ the crowd and getting people in post-work to use the upstairs area. No doubt the silly season (and all associated public holidays) has some part in this, but I think it’s safe to say once word spreads Greenhouse will be *the* place to go for a casual drink, and a bite to eat as the sun goes down on another day. Setup with crates and stools, the area maximises the available space, perfect for socialising.

We left with tummies full and scurried just in time before the high-class Christmas shoppers heading to enex100 took over the area.

If you don’t have time for a sit-down meal at Greenhouse, they do offer take-away coffee, muffins and other treats from a hole in the wall near the main entrance, perfect for 9-to-5 workers as anything’s better than the rubbish Dome call ‘coffee’.

Our Breakfast Club’s final score: 7/10 coffee mugs

2 Responses to “Greenhouse, City”

1. Poached Perth says:

   Wednesday, January 27 10 at 1:19 pm

   I realllllly love their eggs!
2. People in green houses… says:

   Friday, May 21 10 at 9:04 pm

   [...] well if blog reviews are anything to go by, as breakfast has been enjoyed by the good people of our breakfast club, poached, Breakfast in Perth and Cafe Grendel, Bowl of Honey and Perth Food Engineers have had [...]