Address: 187 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy VIC
Hours: open daily 7am-5pm
Phone: 03 9416 4661
It’s everything we expected.
I’ve been walking/riding/driving by the construction site that would be De Clieu every day for a few weeks now, gauging its progress and stopping for chats about the cement floors or the lamps and chairs and how they would look against the cement floors. “Will it be too cold?” “That wood looks really nice with the frosty glass lamps!” “Look, a fireplace!” and so on and so forth. So it was, naturally, with great anticipation that I walked through those fancy sliding glass doors on its opening day this Wednesday morning.
De Clieu, at the corner of Gertrude and George Streets, is Bridget Amor and Mark Dudon’s newest café concoction. The masterminds behind Seven Seeds and Brother Baba Budan have finally made the leap a little bit further north and we can all be thankful for it.
As I walked in, I saw familiar faces behind the coffee machine – transplanted Seven Seeds staff – good sign #1. I was greeted, pointed in the direction of a table and asked what kind of coffee I wanted before even making it into the little wooden school chair, which I also appreciate. The menu endearingly consists of a sheer page printed with images of knots over a page with the culinary options themselves – almost excessively elegant to read through and definitely to choose from first thing in the morning, but all delicious nonetheless – over a final page with a list of some of the local suppliers from whom the café so proudly sources its ingredients.
Named after the 18th century Frenchman famous for his claim of having transported the first coffee seedlings to the Western Hemisphere, De Clieu is immaculate in every way. With a menu designed by überpro Steven Carr, formerly of the Healesville Hotel and Giant Steps, and a spaced designed by Six Degrees, whose work you might be familiar with from places like Auction Rooms and the Albert Park Hotel, the new addition to the Gertrude Street milieu has started itself out with the strongest foundations. In summer, they’ll open the windows and have guests pouring out through them onto the long wooden outdoor sills. The open plan kitchen and floating bench space welcome you in, making you feel like you’re part of the process. With a little time, De Clieu will feel more lived in (it has only been a few days) and I’m looking forward to seeing the space once it finds its cohesive identity. But for now, I’m thrilled about it and it seems like everyone else is, too.