The alleyways just south of Rundle Street in Adelaide’s East End are prime stomping ground for caffeine peddlers, and Penny University is the new kid on this particular block.
Get a degree in coffee and cake at Penny Uni: a modern café serving breakfast, brunch and sweet things, its window emblazoned with charming old-fashioned typeface (like an old-world village bakery or coffee house). Folks from all walks turn up to this friendly hangout, and it's a happy mish-mash of retro, modern, homey and hip, with milk crates out the front and motorbikes at the kerb.
There's a nod to Euro stylings by way of French toast with caramelised bananas, ricotta, homemade rhubarb compote and pistachios – très Rive Gauche. They're making plenty of friends with salad at this joint: vegans and vegetarians, you've hit the giant green jackpot.
It's really the ideal foil to their other speciality: freshly baked sweets. Peanut butter and chocolate cookies or Snickers cannoli are all too easy to justify after such a saintly lunch as beetroot, lentil, pumpkin and quinoa on spinach leaves, and it's a delicious yin-yang situation – you can have your cake and superfood it too.