Surry Hills

A flat white and a bacon and egg roll

The founding image at Surry Hills is a Sydney winter morning: a flat white and a bacon and egg roll, eaten without ceremony. That pairing is what this Australian brunch café in Miami is built to reproduce, and it explains why the coffee programme and the brunch menu are treated as one thing rather than two.

The brand started in Buenos Aires in 2019, opening first in Palermo that September before adding shops in Palma de Mallorca and then the United States. Specialty coffee sits at the front of it, with matcha the main alternative for anyone not drinking coffee, and the kitchen works from fresh, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients rather than a fixed international menu.

A neighbourhood room, sourced from nearby

The room is relaxed and minimalist, and the intention behind it is unhurried: somewhere to slow down over a cup rather than a space designed to turn tables. It reads as a small neighbourhood café rather than the American beachhead of an international group, and that is the right expectation to arrive with.

What makes the Miami branch specific is where the food comes from. More than eighty per cent of its suppliers are based in Little River, so a menu that could easily have been shipped in from an international playbook is instead assembled from the surrounding neighbourhood. That is the difference between a rollout and a shop, and it shows on the plate.

Flat white first, then something to eat

Start with the flat white. It is the drink the whole concept rests on, and the fastest way to judge whether the coffee side is taken as seriously as the branding suggests. Matcha is the other drink worth ordering, and it is the default for anyone skipping coffee; both are made to the same standard, which is not always true in a brunch room.

For food, the bacon and egg roll is the item to order first, because it is the dish the brand uses to explain itself. Beyond it the menu runs to sandwich-style comfort cooking: a tuna melt, a turkey croissant, and the pastry counter that sits at the front window. Order one roll and one pastry between two people and you will have covered both halves of the kitchen, which is about as much as a café this size needs to prove.