Surry Hills Coffee

Flat whites and a Sydney brunch idea

The flat white is the drink this Palermo café was built around, and the bacon and egg roll is the plate that came with it. Surry Hills Coffee opened in September 2019 with a simple transplant in mind: the sunny weekday-morning routine of Sydney's Surry Hills, rebuilt in Buenos Aires with local producers and an Argentine pastry case.

Both founders came out of kitchens, one working the bar and the other the espresso machine, which explains why neither half of the menu feels bolted on. Coffee sits at the centre of a visit rather than accompanying it, and the food is cooked rather than reheated: seasonal, locally sourced and kept deliberately plain. The bar took #99 in the 2026 World's 100 Best Coffee Shops list.

Cinema seats and a small warm room

The room is small enough that its details register: sunlight through the front window, cinema seats pulled up to the tables, and delicate crockery that suits a café where breakfast runs long. You order at the till and the food comes to the table, which keeps the pace closer to a brunch room than a takeaway counter.

That intimacy is why the café works better sitting than standing. It is a neighbourhood room rather than a destination, and it fills with people staying for a second cup. Palermo is the original branch, and the same idea has since travelled to Palma de Mallorca and Miami, but the Buenos Aires version is where the Australian reference stopped being decoration and became a kitchen.

Order the flat white with something from the bake

Start with the flat white. It is the drink most closely attached to the café's identity, and the kitchen builds its pairings around it: with French toast, with an almond and dulce de leche alfajor, or with a cheese scone if the morning wants salt instead of sugar.

The food goes well beyond a pastry case. Australian brunch is the core, with the bacon and egg roll as the defining plate, and the rest of the list runs through scones, cookies, alfajores, salads and French toast. The alfajor is the most Argentine thing on the menu and the clearest sign that this is a Buenos Aires café using a Sydney template rather than importing one wholesale. Take the cheese scone if the plan is coffee and one thing; take the bacon and egg roll if the plan is breakfast.