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Planning a day at Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia? You can now add breakfast or lunch to the itinerary.
Oculus Café x Kitchen by Mike is the new all-day eatery from Sydney chef Mike McEnearney, founder of Kitchen by Mike and the creative director at Sydney’s beloved Carriageworks Farmers Market.
It’s located on the ground floor of the National Gallery, overlooking the Sculpture Garden and works including George Baldessin’s Pear – version number 2 and James Turrell’s Within without. So, technically you can peep the art while you eat.
Breakfast starts at 8am, with Mike’s sourdough, seasonal fruit, house-made muesli, chia pudding, sourdough pancakes, roasted mushrooms and free-range eggs. There’s also avocado and chickpea miso toast, and a selection of vegetarian and vegan options. However, the bacon butty with Pepe Saya butter and the option to add a spoonful of crunchy chilli oil has us salivating.
From 11.30am, lunch switches to a canteen-style setup, with roast meats, quiches, wraps and seasonal salads – featuring produce sourced almost entirely from Canberra and regional NSW. Cakes, tarts and other house-made sweets are available all day, with Australian wines, spirits and beers to wash it all down.
The café was designed by Melbourne-based studio, Kerstin Thompson Architects, with furniture by Sydney designer Tom Fereday. Light floods into the space, with seating oriented towards the Sculpture Garden, so you’re looking out at the art and greenery rather than a car park or shopping-centre foot traffic. It’s meant to blur the line between gallery, garden and cafe, rather than somewhere you duck into for a sandwich from a glass cabinet between exhibitions.
Oculus Café x Kitchen by Mike is open daily from 8am to 4pm on the ground floor of the National Gallery. So you can now spend the morning looking at art, stop for a bacon butty, then go back to looking at art. Honestly, that sounds like a pretty good day out.