The best takeaway breakfasts in Melbourne

Delivery: Yes

This Carlton spot earned the Best Cafe title in our 2019 food awards for its sustainable ethos and superlative Japanese breakfasts. The to-go menu skews heavily towards lunch, but still offers several solid breakfast options including eggs (slow-poached, marinated and soft-boiled, or in a rolled omelet), a brekkie bun with tonkatsu sauce, and savoury rice porridge with grilled fish and an onsen egg. You can also order retail items such as their housemade furikake and nori paste, to recreate Ima’s umami-bomb avocado toast at home.

Order this: The classic Japanese breakfast set ($24) includes grilled fish, rice, miso soup, pickles and sides.

Delivery: Yes

The wholesome Collingwood cafe launched a PM menu over lockdown, offering build-your-own bowls alongside racier options such as fried chicken and burgers. But its tried and true breakfast staples – acai bowls, smoothies and juices, avocado smash and scrambled egg rolls – are still available to help you start your day off right.

Order this: The weekly brunch box ($55) is a finish-at-home kit for two people, available on Fridays. Choose between blueberry pancakes with blueberry caramel, candied bacon, pecans, pickled blueberries and coconut yoghurt; or eggs kurosawa with folded eggs, steamed sesame rice, avocado, bok choy, pickled ginger, fried tofu and teriyaki sauce.

Delivery: No

There’s an almost mathematical precision to the layered viennoiserie produced by the brother-sister team behind this bakery, and the good news is that pastry travels better than most breakfast items, losing none of its flaky, buttery goodness in transit. You can pre-order for pickup at the Fitzroy warehouse-bakery, but at the CBD store, it’s the early bird that gets the pick of the croissants before they sell out. Over lockdown, Lune has been delivering to select suburbs outside of the 5-kilometre zone; announcements of each week’s “Hot Suburbs” are made via Instagram.

Order this: Another development over lockdown is the weekly Lune Greatest Hits croissant, a limited-time revival of something from the bakery’s archives. So far it’s seen the return of the pecan maple bacon, coconut pandan, twice-baked snickers and passionfruit meringue cruffin.

Delivery: No

If you can get to this Brunswick cafe to pick up your order, you’ll have a significant breakfast menu to browse, ranging from traditional Sri Lankan dishes (hoppers and roti) to Aussie cafe standbys (eggs with sides and avocado smash). If not, there’s still hope: the cafe is looking into starting a delivery service soon.

Order this: The hangover busting kothu roti ($17) is a jumble of buttery roti wok-tossed with shredded leek, onion, carrot, scrambled egg, soy and chilli. For something seriously substantial, you can’t go past the buriyani burrito ($19.50) of spiced rice, cashews, chicken curry, sambol, raita and melted cheese in a roti wrap.

Delivery: Yes

Au79 stands for gold on the periodic table, and punters pining after a good old fashioned café brekkie will indeed feel they’ve struck gold when they spy the takeaway menu at this Abbotsford cafe. Choose between eggs your way, kale and corn fritters, brisket Benedict or Mediterranean avocado on toast. You can even upgrade it to the Breakfast in Bed box ($40) which also comes with fruit, pastry, granola and a slice of marble cake.

Order this: When was the last time you had a proper Big Breakfast ($24)? This one comes with eggs, bacon, chorizo, potato hash, sauteed mushrooms and house-made tomato relish.

Delivery: Yes

The gorgeous, sophisticated CBD restaurant-cafe is still serving gorgeous, sophisticated breakfast plates. Avocado comes on honey-oat toast, dressed with native herbs and Vegemite emulsion. A ricotta hotcake is buried under a colourful jumble of fruit, grains, seeds and edible flowers. And scrambled eggs come with spiced purple cauliflower, curry leaf and housemade flatbread. One of the many changes Covid has wrought in our society is this: we regular laypeople can now eat this calibre of food in our pyjamas.

Order this: The minced lamb fry up ($24) is one of the more inventive dishes on the breakfast menu, with fried eggs, lamb mince, miso eggplant, barberries, smoked yoghurt, pine nut dukkah and sourdough toast.

Delivery: Yes

The Hawthorn café has wisely pared down its takeaway menu to simple, unfussy items: toast, eggs, smashed avocado, bircher, filled croissants, bacon and egg slider, and the like. And for the virtuous among us, the signature California superfood salad is basically a bowlful of wellness, and just the antidote to too much time spent inert and indoors.

Order this: Shakshuka ($19.90) perfectly toes the line between comfort and health food; this one is made with with tomatoes, capsicum and eggplant, and comes with warmed Turkish bread to mop up the well-spiced stew.

Delivery: Yes

No doubt anyone close enough to the roastery’s two locations has been popping in on the reg for beans, hot coffee and cold brew. But don’t overlook the breakfast items, available for takeaway from the Little Collins outpost, and for takeaway or delivery from the Fitzroy café. The succinct but solid menu includes bircher, granola, avocado smash, eggs, a very customisable bacon and egg roll, and a green omelette with basil, zucchini and beet-pickled fennel.

Order this: Chilli scrambled eggs ($23) gets an upgrade with sous vide barramundi, sambal oelek, crispy chilli oil, mango-coffee togarashi and bonito flakes.

Delivery: No

Look on the bright side: at least you no longer have to wait for a table at this ever-popular Carnegie café. Their tiny takeout menu – posted on Instagram – has just five items, each one more delicious-sounding than the last. Vegetables are the star of many dishes, including the Middle Eastern fry-up ($22.50) with cauliflower, chickpea, kale, poached eggs, hummus, feta, pomegranate, tahini, dukkah and lime.

Order this: The housemade granola ($16.50) with seasonal fruit, pistachio crumble, vanilla labna and strawberry-rosewater panna cotta occupy that sweet, sweet spot between breakfast and dessert.

Delivery: No

Although this Armadale cafe is known for steering café classics in intriguing directions, the takeaway menu plays it pretty straight. Perhaps they sense that in times of upheaval, we appreciate a little predictability in the form of eggs, porridge, granola, breakfast burgers and burritos. But there are still a few wildcards to be found, such as the kimchi jaffle with a fried egg and barbecue sauce ($13.50).

Order this: Shake up your morning routine with a bowl of breakfast ramen ($21) featuring bacon, poached egg, mushrooms, kale and egg noodles in a light dashi broth.

Delivery: No

Non-citizens are not eligible for JobKeeper and JobSeeker, which is why supporting a social enterprise such as this Richmond café, which employs and trains refugees and asylum seekers, is perhaps more important than ever. Helpfully, they make it easy by offering simple, yummy, well-executed food – think fruit toast with cinnamon butter, chilli eggs with coriander and dill, and oats with chia, fruit compote and mixed crunchy seeds.

Order this: Go for the classic avocado toast ($17) with rocket, feta, dukkah, seeds and a poached egg on sourdough. It’s an oldie but a goodie.

Delivery: Yes

This chichi South Melbourne caf boasts one of the largest takeaway breakfast menus on this list, currently sitting at 11 dishes. This gives the kitchen room to stretch outside the standards with some opulent sweets, including gingerbread waffles with hazelnut crumble, blackberries and maple ice cream; and coconut-raspberry chia pudding with chocolate mousse, coconut and lemon-myrtle yoghurt. You can do your penance with an extra long walk later.

Order this: The rather luxe take on mushrooms on toast ($20.50) features a jumble of sauteed, seasonal mushrooms on sourdough with salsa verde, stracciatella, truffle butter, vincono and hazelnuts.