Coffee Traders

Great café and bar! I love the high ceiling interior and the style is definitely Insta-​worthy! The menu has all the standard café food but with an extra touch to make it more delicious. The apple and cinnamon pancakes are worth a mention when I was pleasantly surprised to find finely chopped Apple within the pancake itself! Oh and pretty cocktails are the perfect excuse for day drinking.

Chose the bacon & egg roll with BBQ sauce, a skim flat white & a Babycino with mini marshmallows. Miss nearly 4 devoured nearly the lot on her own & my coffee was amazing! The owner James has been in business here just 4 months and is really keen to make some family additions to the business. He’s especially keen to welcome mums with prams as there’s plenty of room to accommodate groups. I’ll certainly be back!

A rustic, old vintage décor. I love the little vespas… just want to grab one, jump on and ride away… pity they didn’t leave the key. I did look. The atmosphere is quiet and cool, quiet music playing in the background. Unfortunately there needs to be more people serving… a little crowded to get service. However the food makes up for it… today I wasn’t in a rush. There is a wide range of food and I could come here for breakfast for a fortnight and have something different everyday.

Top Ryde is a pretty nice shopping mall, and getting nicer. The semi-​outdoor row of shops and restaurants upstairs all appear to be nice (for a mall).
This café appears to focus on coffee (see the name), but I was here for lunch. The menu isn’t large but they do have a selection of gourmet burgers in the $ 18 range. I had the Hawaiian (a slab of pineapple, obviously, with some bacon) and it was delish. It did take quite a while to arrive though, when they didn’t really seem very busy.
They’re licensed, though they only seem to have one or two wines by the glass. Luckily one was a decent cab sav.
There were plenty of others in here sharing lunch: a group of mums, one or two people studying or working with arrays of papers laid out in front of them, a couple of business lunches.
The décor is dark and woody, but the large glass front lets in lots of light.

Having only been 3 or 4 times, the coffee is consistently above average, at best, and this review deals solely with the coffee. Granted, it is always strong and solid in flavour. The only issue is that it has strange flavour. There’s always a strange burnt/​sour vanilla tinge to the coffee. Not sour like Element 6 where it tastes like a cat died in their machine which gets it water feed from the septic tank; it’s merely a different, less common roasting preference. For that reason alone, I’m not on fire for this coffee. But, if I ever HAVE to choose between all the coffee joints in Top Ryde, coffee traders does it. Less burnt than patisons, less over-​chocolatey than Oliver’s, less cigarette-​smokestack than emporium, and I don’t need to mention why it’s better than Gloria’s. So yes, good, rich, punchy flavour, good milk, ta-​da!
Outside that, the menu is really impressive. The décor is ridiculously awesome. The staff (especially baristas) is relatively knowledgeable (although I have been in a few times when it looked like some of the staff had no idea where they were or how they got there…). And the location is great.
I could expand the review if I ever get to enjoy food from there.

Trying the coffee out at this place. I only ordered a decaf flat white. Looked the goods. Check out my pic. I’ll say it right now that my go to decaf bean is coffee alchemy and have to say I still prefer despite it being a trek and a half from where I am.
Service was ok, not great. Took my coffee order at the front. Could see I was looking at sweets but didn’t do the add on of, ‘would you like anything else?’. Basic customer service I would think. Guess, he doesn’t own the place or is making a killing and doesn’t need anymore $$$?!? Another Guy served me my coffee at my table. Table was clearly dirty with crumbs and didn’t clean it. Eh, I’m not that fussy but that’s not cool. Would maybe come and have coffee and possibly food another time (looked good on the other table) but only if I had no other choice for coffee…
Be interesting to see how this place is when it’s busy. It’s 3pm on a Monday and it’s dead quiet. Funky looking place I’ll give it that.

Not the best first visit. Took way too long for my order considering there was only one other person who was waiting ahead of me. Toast was over toasted and two dark forgot my butter. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I had eaten in but when you take away it’s a little annoying. Nice décor and friendly staff.

Coffee: Batch (Six Ladies)
Passion: ⁸⁄₁₀
Crema: ⁸⁄₁₀
Taking on the challenge of finding great coffee at the Top of Ryde, it seems like this café is the obvious choice. Half café, half restaurant and half bar (yes… I am great at math), this place seems to offer a relaxed and funky atmosphere. I can image on the weekends it gets packed.
As for coffee, you could look at this café as the flagship for Batch — Speciality Coffee Blenders, who I have only seen at a few cafes around Sydney, but where I did find it I was pleasantly surprised. It was a little unfortunate today as it seems that today their single origin was sold out and their cold drip was being saved for the weekend, so it was the house blend for me.
Today the house blend was their Six Ladies, a blend of brazilian, ethiopian and indian coffee, that as a macciato offered a smooth and a little nutty way to start the day. I ended up trying it twice and both times it was creamy and rich in flavour. Not a bad way to start the day.
It also helped that sitting inside the glorious smell of bacon kept wafting through… though I may have to run out of here before I cheat on my diet again…
N.B.
I was unable to find any #powerwhoring here
There is WiFi here, but I am unsure if it is available/​public

Top Ryde City Shopping Center always seems to get bigger and have new cafes and shops every time I visit. When this place opened up, I knew I had to give it a try. I know people don’t generally like cafes in shopping centers (I know I definitely don’t like the ones that are completely inside and there’s no natural lighting at all) but since this was on the ground floor and had plenty of light (and I could people watch!) I didn’t mind this so much.
The café gives a super hipster and trendy vibe, and there’s a cool decorative bike (Vespa? I don’t really know these things!) inside, which isn’t taking up space at all. There’s a really cozy feel to it, and all the menus and decorations are displayed in such a way as to add to that hipster atmosphere.
There’s a huge selection of food, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to give it a try yet, but I’m sure to quite soon.
However, on my most recent visit, I had a simple latte ($ 4) and a Chocolate Indulgence ($ 8). The coffee was smooth and tasted very balanced. The chocolate indulgence was presented beautifully, on a large dark wooden board, with a strawberry lightly dusted with icing sugar in the top left corner. A scoop of vanilla icecream accompanied the very dense and warm self-​saucing chocolate cake. I’m one of those people that likes a perfect 1:1 ratio of cake to icecream, so the scoop was a little on the small side for my tastes.
I like chocolate well enough, but fair warning to all, this is an intense cake. I almost finished all of it alone, but it was an effort. It’s probably wise to share it with another chocolate lover (halve the calories and the cost!)
I’m definitely going back to coffee traders, because the servers were friendly, it’s so close to me and there’s a whole lot of food that I have yet to try!