★★★★★ Brunetti’s crema di caffe
Recently, a Walkley Award-winning journalist reached out via one of our whistleblower backchannels (IG DMs) with an exclusive story that he felt had not been given adequate media coverage. In his message, which was topped and tailed with alarm bell emojis to indicate urgency, the Walkley Award-winning journalist told TPE that there was a coffee being served at Brunetti that was possibly the best caffeinated beverage on the market. It was called the “cafe crema,” he said, and it was, in his words, “hiding in plain sight.” Your editors had been planning on visiting the brand new Brunetti on the corner of Swanston and Little Collins, a ricotta-filled pavilion framed by some of the ugliest public statuary this city has to offer. We arrived just past 9am. The problems started when we approached the counter to order. A woman wearing sparkly leggings and a leather jacket was having an altercation with a staff member. “Give me back my $50,” she kept shouting, to which the ashen-faced server was replying, “I would but only the manager can open the till and she’s on the toilet.” There was by now a line of people waiting to order. The waitress was trying to attend to them, but the woman spread her legs wide to prevent anyone from getting past. “None of you get coffee until I get my fifty bucks back,” she snarled. It was an ugly scene, but your editors were happy enough admiring the pistachio-crusted cannolis behind the glass counter, daydreaming about the new secret coffee we were about to sample. Finally, the manager emerged from the loo, opened the till, and handed the woman $50. We approached the counter and offered a conciliatory smile: “We’ll have the cafe crema, per favore.” “The what?” “Umm. The cafe crema,” we replied. The waitress became nonverbal, forcing the manager to intervene again. “You mean the crema di caffe? We don’t serve it here, sorry. Next!” Deflated, we trudged down Swanston thinking suspicious thoughts. Had the journalist stitched us up? Why did he give us the wrong name for this novel coffee? Did it even exist? Was he trying to keep us distracted while some other significant event unfolded that he was now going to scoop us on? We turned right down Flinders Lane and into the gargantuan Brunetti just up from the Melbourne Theosophical Society. “Do you have the crema di caffe?” we asked the barista. “Crema di caffe?” she replied. “You heard us. Crema di caffe.” “Yes, yes. I think so. I think it should be ready. Let me check.” She ducked behind the counter and fiddled around with what looked to be a slushie machine, emerging with a glass mug filled with an aerated, caramel-colored foam dotted with three coffee beans and served with a wafer-thin biscuit. A teaspoon was sticking out of the beverage, suggesting that this was not quite a liquid, but something thick and viscous. The real shock came, though, when we picked up the glass and felt that it was cold, ice cold. So this was a stitch-up. What type of sicko recommends iced coffee on a freezing winter’s morning? But, wait. This wasn’t just any iced coffee. The texture was somewhere between a granita and a mousse, light and fluffy, and punctuated with shards of granulated ice. It was sweet but the sweetness was mellowed by a rich double shot of espresso. The crema was, we realised, a truly stunning drink and though probably best drunk in summer, when balanced with a tomato mozzarella focaccia and chased with a Manchester Blue, it offered a little taste of La Dolce Vita in the middle of winter.
★★★★ Hedwig musical
Here at The Paris End, we don’t condone musicals in general, but we’re willing to make an exception for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. For the uninitiated, Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell’s cult play and 2001 film follows the life and times of Hedwig, a uniquely-gendered rock star with a penchant for a gigantic pretzel of a platinum blonde wig. Hedwig is born Hansel Schmidt in Communist East Berlin, but becomes Hedwig after meeting an American GI/sugar daddy named Luther, who pays for her to have a botched surgery, marries her, moves her to AmeriKKKa, then promptly dumps her. Living in a trailer in Kansas, she starts performing with a band and working as a babysitter for an uber-religious army commander, whose dashing son, Tommy Speck, is only just underage… Hedwig transforms the quivering little Speck into a bonafide rocker, teaching him how to play guitar and bestowing upon him various sexual awakenings and a name that will catapult him to celebrity: Tommy Gnosis (yes, the Greek word for knowledge). Tommy repays Hedwig by stealing all her songs and dumping her, forcing her to pursue a copyright lawsuit and to go on tour with a new backing band called the Angry Inch. Honestly, this summary doesn’t do the tale justice. But the live show at the Athenaeum, on for the next week as part of RISING, basically does. Cameron Mitchell is an acid-perfect Hedwig whose original act is nigh-impossible to follow up, but local talent Seann Miley Moore has really RISEN to the occasion. Don't just trust us, trust Miley Moore’s Opera Australia bio: “Even Simon Cowell said ‘This Kid’s..A STAR!!’” The production isn’t the most lavish and the costumes are sometimes giving upcycled denim design challenge, but the Athenaeum Theatre has recessionary charm and the band are a bunch of tight, perfectly competent sessionistas. They play all the hits: “Wicked Little Town,” “Tear Me Down,” “The Origin of Love.” If you don't have cash to splash (tickets start at $69), we recommend getting a mini martini at Cathedral and then watching the movie at home. But if you do have a bit of EOFY $$$ at hand, you should gather a few theatrically-inclined friends and Support the Arts.
★★★ What People Wear
Melbourne is a city where the fashionable get dressed not so much to achieve personal distinction as to demonstrate capacity for refinement on a theme. As the seasons change, a new niche style is taken up by a particular social group and then rarified with minor variations so subtle that it takes near-expert knowledge to assess the quality of its various iterations (lest we forget bleached caps; riding high in 2020, completely unacceptable in 2023… ready for a reprise in 2026?). Because of this, sartorial scenes remain siloed off from one another, as one gets dressed not for the general public but for the 80 other people who are going for the exact same look. Call it critical discernment, or social conformity. One person who appears to be resisting, or at least oblivious, to this culture is Olga Pokrovskaya, proprietor of the street style Instagram whatpeoplewear.au. On her account, she showcases the full spectrum of Melbourne’s micro-scenes—from Millie Savage ring-stackers to baggy-pants-tiny-top tragics to Adidas Samba normies. In Olga’s personal style, she eschews Melbourne’s demand for refinement and stylistic consistency. Instead, she appears in public in some genuinely insane outfits, like her favourite moulded plastic skin-toned corset. There is a refreshing naive enthusiasm and striving ambition about her project, but we have reason to worry that she might be leaving us. After a recent trip to Sydney for Fashion Week, Olga started posting about how she’s growing tired of Melbourne… the beautiful people of Sydney are so much more open and free and willing to put themselves out there... Don’t be fooled Olga: they were just playing dress-ups for their one sad little fashion parade of the year.
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