Gypsey & Musquito, Richmond by Big Fil

Gypsey and Musquito provides an interesting Australian produce take on the more typical Melbourne cafe fare: ricotta hotcakes come with Lilly Pilly and wild raspberry compote with wattleseed and macadamia ice cream, thyme buttered mushrooms with smoked paperbark oil and salt bush chevre, and to go with your bacon and eggs you can have camel, emu, wallaby or crocodile sausages.

Located in an old Victorian house on Bridge Road, Gypsey and Musquito is a nice, comfortable place to eat, with the usual  communal table towards the back, an interesting variety of chairs for the smaller tables and a few knick knacks around the wall that wouldn’t look out of place at your aunty's country kitchen. 

Space is a little limited, particularly on a cool Melbourne winter's day where nobody wants to sit outside, but if you pay careful attention you might notice a few people heading for the back stairway.  This leads to a couple of small upstairs rooms in what were probably bedrooms in a previous life.

House made crumpets are something you don’t see often enough on cafe menus.  Gypsey and Musquito’s are served stacked on a cute wooden board with butter and maple and ironbark syrup. The texture of the crumpets is somewhat denser than your typical packaged variety making them more filling.  On a cold morning soaking up the sweetness of the butter and syrup they almost make a delicious meal in themselves and were my favourite part of our visit.

For ‘mains’ Snooze decided to try the zucchini, pumpkin and Yarra Valley feta fritters, served with a corn salsa, lemon myrtle labne (strained yoghurt), a free-range poached egg and ‘green stuff’ (rocket).  A variation on the common corn fritters, compared to which the flavour of the fritters was a little more restrained, the texture a little more crumbly.  Nice without being my favourite fritters ever.

Personally I was after meatier, more gamey fare and so headed for the crocodile sausage, served with roasted tomato, mushrooms, wilted spinach, crispy bacon, poached egg, ribery (the berry, not the footballer) confit and wheat with wattleseed damper.  The crocodile sausage was interesting, kind of subtle in flavour, but next time I’d likely try one of the other options on offer.  The bacon was certainly crispy, maybe even slightly more so than I prefer, and the dish as a whole was quite sweet.

Overall

While I didn’t think the food was as polished as at some Melbourne cafes it certainly offered some interesting options.  Cakes by the front counter looked good even if after our crumpets we were too full to try them. It definitely offers enough to justify a few return visits.

Verdict

Food – 8

Ambience – 8

Service – 7.5

Price – 7

Address

382 Bridge Road

Richmond VIC 3121

Tel: (03) 9939 9314