Homestead Café

From the people who brought you Ceremony Cafe comes Homestead, a gallery-come-café servicing the ‘burbs with great coffee and food Tuesday through to Sunday. Located in the south-meets-west inner-city suburb of Hillsborough, Homestead Café sits in a heritage building which also homes the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre, making for a rather cultured cuppa coffee.

The building, built in the late 1870’s as an old-fashioned Man Pad for its then owner James Williamson, looks out to the sprawling Monte Cecila Park, home to leafy trees and manicured green, while the accents of suburban living and expansion live on all around; busy and bustling Royal Oak roundabout links Auckland’s main roads while a primary school and Catholic Friary are just a stone's throw away. Continuing with the juxtaposition comes the building itself. While luxe and regal, the space homes New Zealand’s largest private contemporary art collection, and now a café oozing cool and clever ideas and concepts to work in harmony with their friends in the Arts Centre.

Connor and Charles from Ceremony Café have teamed up with author and food writer Sam Mannering for this particular project, and you won't see a precisely planned menu of few sandwiches like you are used to from this threesome. Instead, the Homestead menu is much more dense in it offerings, making it perfect for more than a quick pit stop in your lunch break.

The one concept taken from Ceremony, however, is the focus on that carb-driven blur between breakfast and lunch. Crumpets of both the sweet and savoury kind are worth a heavy mention on the menu, and so too is the three different kinds of bruschetta. Add from the sides list to create a more hearty meal, or opt for a main. We recommend the Lamb Scottadito, and get the kids a Croque Monsieur so you can tear into that too. Wash it all down with a New Zealand wine from their wine list- because brunch isn't blurred without a couple a swigs of wine.

While some of the menu takes you back to nostalgic Vogel sandwiches with sardines at Grandma's table, accents of exotic pickings reflect the area's diverse community and rich history. Take it all in from the Homestead’s large deck, and be sure to spend some time passing the day away in the Gallery too.