Piggery Cafe, Sherbrooke by Bureaucrat

Dining out with a toddler presents a few challenges.  No longer can the Lawyer and I have the luxury of going on gourmet road trips (how I miss the ginger treacle cakes at Red Beard Historic Bakery in Trentham and the gorgeous wood-fired pizzas at Birregurra Farm Foods) or linger over a seafood buffet at Melba or degustation lunch at Champions Bistro.

Wagyu beef burger

With a wriggly and potentially cranky toddler in tow, I find myself critiquing restaurants and cafes on more than just their food and service.  What's the lack of accessibility in so many of our restaurants?  I'm astonished at how cramped and squishy restaurants are - how are people with a wheelchair, walking aids and prams meant to navigate their way through?  And my gosh, I feel for those with sensory conditions.  The prevalence of polished concrete, exposed bricks, loud music over speakers as the design de rigeur and the lack of sound-proofing not only makes it hard to have a conversation without shouting but must be overwhelming for people who are sensitive to loud noises (on a side note, bravo to Coles for introducing its 'Quite Hour' shopping - even those of us who aren't on the autism spectrum can appreciate a quieter shopping environment).

Prawn po' boy

Nowadays, I'm on the hunt for restaurants and cafes that are close to home (i.e., in the eastern suburbs), spacious and can keep a toddler happy.  For us, this means going to a restaurant that has a garden or plenty of green space for Boy Chick to ramble around while we eat. If you've got any suggestions of where to go, I'd love to hear from you in the comments section!  So far, we've enjoyed King Henry's Arts Cafe in Sassafras (with it's amazing outdoor chess set), and with that recent visit, it reminded me of the Piggery Cafe which is in nearby Sherbrooke.

Tea

We had dined at the Piggery Cafe years ago. While I had enjoyed it back then, I have a new-found appreciation for the cafe.  It ticks all our boxes: kid-friendly, great food, lots of green space.  It also appears that many other families feel the same way too, as the place is filled with young kiddies.  But before this puts anyone without children off from coming here, I can tell you that there's so much green space that you hardly notice the children - there's nary a whinge, cry or meltdown among the kids dining here - they're far too happy running around, playing with the outdoor games, climbing trees and looking at the animals (a chicken sauntered past our table). I've read that owner Shannon Bennett has six kids so I guess he knows a thing or two about keeping kids happy.

In the past few weeks, we've been here a couple of times.  It's best to get here early as it's quite popular from the moment it opens for the day.  Also, it's good to place your orders quickly as I've found the service is definitely on the slower side of things.

The food on offer is simple cafe food - most of it features bread as the Piggery Cafe is also home to Burnham Beeches bakery (which makes all the bread products for the Vue chain of restaurants and other fine dining restaurants in Melbourne).

The Lawyer's Pig Out was simple and good.  Fresh, quality produce and great tasting sourdough. I snaffled some of the cubed hash browns - delish!

I ordered the veggie burger.  This was pretty tasty.  It came with char-grilled eggplant, roasted capsicum, red onions, cucumber, lettuce and hummus.  I would have liked an extra slice of eggplant as the thin slices felt a tad meagre.

Latte

A week or so later, I brought Mother Hen along with us for brunch.  Her wagyu burger (see first pic) was a beauty to behold.  Unfortunately we didn't realise the burger was served medium rare until she had a few bites.  But the kitchen staff were more than happy to cook it fully.

My prawn po' boy (see second pic) was also pretty to look at.  It also tasted quite nice - good meaty chunks of prawn in a crisp batter.  And the bread roll had a thin crisp crust and nice, fluffy goodness on the inside.  But I did feel that for $21 this was a bit overpriced.  I would've liked a few more prawns for that price.

This time round, I ordered a dish from the kids' menu.  There's about five options to choose from and I went for the potato and zucchini fritters for Boy Chick.  While these were a tad burnished than I would have liked, the fact that Boy Chick was willing to eat some of the fritters was a testament that they were tasty (he, naturally, wolfed down the chips without any coaxing).  The fritters came with coleslaw that Mother Hen and I ate.

Verdict

We really liked it.

Mid value.

Overall

I really like the Piggery Cafe - it's the combination of all its best bits that makes it a favourite ours.  The food is good quality (although a tad pricey for some of the items), service is friendly (though the food can be a bit slow), the kid-friendly distractions on offer is wonderful and I can get there in about 40 minutes drive.

I've seen families come to have a picnic on the grounds - I don't think the Piggery Cafe minds too much about that.  It's hard not to end up purchasing something from the cafe (they do takeaway as well) and they've also got a food truck/trailer on the grounds that serves small dishes to eat.

While there's plenty of things to keep the kids happy, there are also games for big kids.  There's bocce and lawn bowls on offer but you do need to pay to play them.

Find it at

Piggery Cafe
1 Sherbrooke Road
Sherbrooke VIC 3789
Phone: (03) 9691 3858