We didn’t open Saffron & Co because Melbourne needed another café. We opened it because we were tired of choosing between our cultures.
This is where your amma’s chai recipe meets single-origin Melbourne coffee. Where masala scrambled eggs sit next to smashed avo. Where a dosa can be your Tuesday breakfast and nobody thinks that’s unusual.
We cook the way second-gen kids actually eat, with one foot in our parents’ kitchen and another on Brunswick Street.
Spices from Kerala. Coffee from Brunswick.
The Menu
Everything we cook, and what it costs.
No hidden second menu, no market price. Kitchen closes half an hour before we do.
Masala Scrambled Eggs
$19
Free-range eggs, green chilli, cumin, coriander, fresh curry leaves. On sourdough, obviously.
The Dosa
$17
Crispy rice and lentil crepe. Sambar, coconut chutney, potato masala. Our amma's recipe, and no, we won't adjust it.
Weekend Biryani
$24
Slow-cooked lamb shoulder, saffron rice, burnt onion, raita on the side. One pot, and when it is gone it is gone.
Sat & Sun only
Breakfast
7am - 11.30am
The first half of the day, cooked the way we actually eat it at home. Bread comes from the bakery three doors down.
Masala Scrambled Eggs
v$19
Free-range eggs, green chilli, cumin, coriander, fresh curry leaves. On sourdough, obviously.
Vegetarian
The Dosa
vggf$17
Crispy rice and lentil crepe. Sambar, coconut chutney, potato masala. Our amma's recipe, and no, we won't adjust it.
Vegan, Gluten free
Eggs Kejriwal
v$18
Fried eggs, melted cheese, green chilli, coriander. A Bombay club classic that has no business being this good.
Vegetarian
Chilli Scrambled Tofu
vg$18
Silken tofu, mustard seed, turmeric, spring onion. Smoked chilli oil over the top.
Gin, curry leaf cordial, lime. Herbal, dry, a bit unexpected.
Beer & Wine
$9 / $14
Two local taps, a short natural wine list, and a lassi for whoever is driving.
Walk-ins only after 5pm. We stop pouring when the kitchen has finished cleaning up, which is later than it sounds.
Our Story
Second-gen cooking.
Priya grew up watching her mum make chai every morning. Whole spices, fresh ginger, the works. By 16 she was also pulling shots at a Fitzroy café and arguing with regulars about single-origin beans.
Arjun’s thing was bread. Naan at home, sourdough at work. He spent five years baking at three different Melbourne bakeries before deciding that tandoori and sourdough weren’t as different as people thought.
They met at a Diwali party in Northcote and bonded over the fact that both their families thought their cooking was ‘too experimental’. Saffron & Co opened eight months later.
The menu changes constantly because Priya and Arjun cook what they actually want to eat, which is never the same thing two weeks running. The chai recipe, though? That doesn’t change. That’s amma’s.
