The Stables of Como

This beautiful reinvented stable building at the back of the Como gardens is an incredibly tranquil and calming area to eat brunch or settle down for a scone post garden-wander. Upon entering, you are greeted by a display of cakes and sweets stretching the length of the room, it’s pretty difficult to not want to buy one of everything, so I’d suggest averting your eyes as you wait to be seated.

There are old school musk sticks and rocky road, along with French pastries, macarons and friands.

The staff at The Stables are friendly and on the ball, allowing us to start outside under garden umbrellas then move indoors once a table freed up.

I started off with my hot chocolate ($5.0) staple. It was massively chocolatey, even more so than a chocolate specialty café. The whole bottom section of the glass was essentially chocolate, and even when I mixed it, it became only a tad lighter in shade. The drink will be enjoyed by hardcore chocolate drinkers.

I ordered Aggie’s Lemonade scones, bonne Maman jam, chantilly cream ($5.0 half serve) just because their reputation precedes them and who am I to not try them. As expected, they were fluffy and warm, with a great outer which gave it a shell-like crunch. The scone wasn’t too sweet so it was balanced well, and I would rate it just a smudge better than our homemade variety. Even though the serve of jam and cream looked small, it was ample for the one scone.

The Rumbled Eggs with chives, truffled pecorino + pancetta on griffled crumpets ($16.9) caught my eye right away and I was rewarded by my choice. The crumpet was amazing, floury and way better than the supermarket bought crumpets – I could almost tasted the homemade deliciousness. Due to the crumpet anatomy, it absorbed the butter and egg flavours well and became moist and flavoursome. The rumbled eggs were light and fluffy and garnished with just the right amount of chives and parmesan to make the dish adequately salty. I could eat both aspects of the dish alone due to the expert preparation. The pancetta was the only part of the dish that I wouldn’t miss – crispy but so fatty and salty, which I suppose was used to balance out the more subtle eggs, which it did well in the end.

‘The Gardeners’ breakfast – Poached free range eggs, crispy bacon, tomato salsa, fresh avocado + sautéed mushrooms on toasted sourdough ($19.9) was done well, but again, nothing special and is in line with my policy of never ordering ‘big breakfast’ style dishes.

The Red Velvet cake ($4.9) was beautiful and moist, with a more subtle chocolate flavour than Beatrix’s, but due to the added strawberry jam layer it was much sweeter which was a nice change. The cream cheese icing was again, quite subtle but enough to give it that distinct red velvet taste.

The Pistachio + Raspberry teacake, white chocolate + cream cheese icing ($4.9) was very nice, if not a bit strong to eat in one go. It was incredibly moist (even when I ate it three days later lol). It had a strong pistachio taste and the simple icing went well with the cake.

The Apple cinnamon white chocolate muffin ($4.9) was amazing, I would go back all the time for that. Soft but perfectly done on the outside so it had a harder biscuit texture (have you noticed my approval for this style baking?) The muffin wasn’t too sweet but definitely not tasteless, and the chocolate bits were huge but high quality chocolate so they melted in your mouth without that weird waxy taste.

TL;DR I am so excited to return and try the Banana Hotcake and more of the delectable cakes.