At NOUR Café, brunch enthusiasts can savour a diverse menu featuring exquisite, photographic dishes from pistachio-crème French toast to chilli butter prawn rolls, all while seated in an Instagram-worthy setting.
D o I want coffee or matcha? Breakfast or lunch? Sweet or savoury? Meat or veg? These are the age-old questions when going out for brunch. But what if I told you that you didn’t have to choose?
At NOUR, there’s something for everyone. Whether you’re inclined towards pistachio-crème filled French toast, an innovative take on a full English breakfast, or a smoked brisket sandwich, the options at NOUR Café may actually overwhelm you. And the kicker: it’s all outstanding.
Part of NOUR’s mission is to ‘lead with integrity, crafting a space where whole foods, seasonal produce, and thoughtful design come together effortlessly.’ And they’ve done just that. Here you’ll find a clean, sleek interior with white marbled tables with pops of gold hardware and burnt orange upholstered chairs. But what really draws your eye is the large water feature at the back of the space, a perfect backdrop for an Instagram-worthy photo op. But don’t put your phone away just yet, because the food is even more jaw-droppingly gorgeous than the atmosphere, and without sacrificing taste.
Highlights
- Diverse Menu: Offers a blend of sweet and savoury options, including pistachio-crème French toast and chilli butter prawn rolls.
- Instagram-Worthy Ambience: Sleek design with marbled tables, gold accents, and a stunning water feature.
- Balanced Flavours: Dishes like the French toast provide surprising complexity, avoiding cloying sweetness.
- Exceptional Sides: Unique offerings such as corn ribs and parmesan truffle fries elevate the side dish experience.
- Drink Dilemma Solved: Split cups allow you to enjoy both iced matcha and lattes without compromise.
- Dinner and Sunday Roast: Expansive menu that maintains high quality across all offerings, challenging the notion that variety dilutes excellence.
Of course, I had to try one sweet and one savoury brunch item, so I opted for two of their most popular dishes: the chilli butter prawn roll and the mascarpone and poached pear French toast. The shrimp roll arrives draped in a stunning, flawlessly runny egg just waiting to be popped. When the egg yolk mixes with the house-made mayonnaise, the garlic- and herb-coated prawns, and the pillow-soft brioche bun, you’re in for a bite so luscious you might start to sound like Meg Ryan right there in the middle of the restaurant, When Harry Met Sally style.
As a savoury girly, normally I wouldn’t go for a sugar bomb like a mascarpone, poached pear, and maple syrup French toast—especially as a meal and not as a dessert. But just to get a good grasp on the variety that NOUR offers, I wanted to taste it. And how wrong I was, because it is not, in fact, a sugar bomb, but instead is an incredibly balanced and carefully-thought-out dish that will satisfy every side of your tastebuds—not just the sweet part. The toast itself is fluffy, sweet, cinnamony, and rich, but the mascarpone and poached pear are unsweetened. The mascarpone lends a beautiful, complementary tanginess to the bread, and the pear offers a fruity freshness without adding any further sugar. And to top it all off, the pecans do have a hint of sugar, but they’re salted as well, adding a crunch and rounding out the entire bite into blissful harmony.
Not to be outdone are their sides. Typically just something by the wayside, sides are often an afterthought to add some carbs or veg to your meal. But not at NOUR. I got a bit of a random assortment, again with the goal of trying what NOUR has to offer rather than creating a cohesive meal, and not one of them was lacklustre. The corn ribs are the ideal blend of sweet and salty, like a cousin to kettle corn if it was still on the cob. The parmesan truffle fries are skinny, salty, cheesy, and have the right amount of truffle down to the drop without becoming overpowering. And the oak-smoked salmon is effortlessly tender with that deep smoke flavour, but lightened by the zest of lime wedge they bring to squeeze over the top.
The cherry on top of this meal was the split cups they offer; so you never have to choose between an iced matcha or an iced latte—which is always a serious dilemma for me. Both the vanilla matcha and the pistachio latte were creamy, delicious, and the right level of sweetness.
As if this all wasn’t enough, NOUR offers an entirely separate dinner menu as well and a Sunday roast. I don’t usually trust restaurants that offer so many things, as that tends to mean they don’t do any one thing really well. But NOUR is absolutely an exception to the rule, because everything I tried was exceptional. I’m honestly prepared to make the 50-minute commute every day just so I never have to choose between coffee or matcha ever again.
