With a sustainable mindset and their hearts in hospitality, Jason Currie, Rob Cecchinelli and Sebastian Fichera designed and planned a sophisticated-yet-homely café in Essendon. The view across the road to the park was a location linchpin for Pascoe Vale South resident Currie, who says he spent 7½ years looking at an “industrial wasteland” while at Ray’s Café in Brunswick.
Form, named by Currie as both “an arrangement of parts” and for-mum, dad Martin and his wife Maree Kim, opened in early June.
Currie says the sleek, minimalistic look he hoped to achieve was created with the help of an architect friend who spends time in Melbourne and Switzerland.
“We wanted to achieve an inviting space that complemented the north-easterly aspect of the building,” he says.
Compostable plates and takeaway coffee cups are used in the café, which does not sell bottled drinks but rather its own house-made lemonade and blueberry-ade. The goal is to create a minimal impact on landfill – waste is composted and offered to local community gardens, says Currie.
The home-style food, created by Currie and chef Nathan Coffey, includes the Breakfast Club sandwich with poached eggs, tomato and farmhouse bacon; a cheese and onion square with leeks and onions braised in white wine under a blanket of cheddar, and the Tutti Frutti – smashed avocado, grapefruit, tomato and feta. There might be a pork belly brioche roll with coleslaw or perhaps a braised lamb roll on the lunch menu.
Perrin McKirdy, a former staff member at Ray’s, helps out a couple of days a week too.
Barista
There’s always a time and a place that marks the turning point in a coffee fanatic’s working life. For Robert Cecchinelli, that was the juncture in his 20-year hospitality career when he joined Jason Currie and his team at Ray’s Café.
Cecchinelli spent 2½ years at Ray’s and another 18 months at Bean Counter Café in Fairfield honing his specialty coffee skills. For the past year or so, he’s worked as a “start-up man” at friends’ cafés in the northern suburbs. He and the barista team at Form work with Sydney-based Campos Coffee’s Superior blend.
“We chose it as we found it was a good all-round coffee. It’s a fantastic blend that goes with either black or with milk and has a great chocolatey finish,” he says.
A long black will hold mid-palate notes of maple syrup and pecans with a rich stone-fruit finish. The prize-winning blend is complex and fruity, and a standout on the Melbourne coffee scene.
Form Café, 32 Albion Street, Essendon
Phone 9375 3232
Barista Robert Cecchinelli
Coffee Campos
Barista’s choice ¾ latte
Open Monday to Friday 6.30am-4pm; weekends 8am-4pm
www.facebook.com/pages/Form-Cafe/184897851654353
Sparkling windows and soft ivory walls give this minimalist space the groundwork for its designer-inspired form. Polished floors and golden timber seating are offset by a stark branch supporting lighting tubes. A brown-paper roll lists menu choices, tomato tins contain cutlery, and urns dispense house-filtered H2O.
