For someone who is intolerant to most wheat flour, I have a bizzare obsession with bread. After several months of looking six months pregnant every time I ate bread (eight if it was Turkish bread) and spending the rest of the night rolling around in pain, I finally gave in and gave up bread several years ago. Giving up the bread and pasta was relatively easy (as long as I didn't frequent Italian places too much) and after a while I didn't miss it. Occasionally I opted for gluten-free bread but found the majority of it incredibly inferior to regular bread and unsatisfying. I also resented paying up to $3 extra to substitute amazing sounding in-house baked bread for a smaller slice of nothing that appeared to be straight off a supermarket shelf. The other thing was that most gluten-free breads don't absorb sauces and egg yolks as well as standard bread so I'd end up with a soggy mess. Ok, that's probably enough of a rant...#firstworldproblems Anyway, more recently I've become a lot less stringent with avoiding gluten-ised bread and have tried sourdoughs and non-wheat-flour (e.g spelt and rye) breads after hearing that some intolerant people can handle them and have had mixed results. I've also started regularly making my own rye, spelt and buckwheat breads which I seem to be fine with. And when faced with amazing sounding options (hello oatmeal stout sourdough) taste sensation opportunity beats potential pain. So now with so many amazing artisan bakeries popping up around Brisbane, I'm not as inclined to straight out avoid them as I once was.



Which (finally!) brings me to my recent visit to Chester Street, a bakery by day and bar by night, in Newstead which opened late last year. The concept was developed by Damien Griffiths of Alfred & Constance (and several others) and Jocelyn Hancock of Jocelyn's Provisions fame. Jocelyn's involvement was enough to get me interested. A year later, after planning a breakfast date with my old friend C, I finally got there. Chester Street is located on its namesake street, which is a quiet street not far from James St but in an area which is rapidly growing in popularity for new and upcoming food and bar spots. From the front, the building looks rather nondescript with a large parking lot out front, with the exception of the large sign placed up high. We parked in front of a lovely hanging wall garden of herbs, which I was instantly jealous of when I compared it to my half-dying lot at home.



We arrived around 9am on Sunday morning and there were already several customers enjoying breakfast but it was hardly busy. Ordering is done at the counter so after marvelling at the delicious looking baked treats on the counter, we picked up a menu from a nearby table and perused our options. The Chester Street brunch menu is split into four sections: cooked, griddle, just baked and cereals. The savoury mince with poached eggs ($19.90) off the cooked menu sounded particularly appealing given that it was a chilly morning and the ricotta, cinnamon and buckwheat pancakes ($16.90) sounded like a great sweeter option but then I saw the  in-house hot smoked salmon ($5.50) on the extras menu and was sold. I'm a sucker for anything smoked in-house, especially salmon. Then it was a matter of deciding whether to pair it with the avocado toast ($12.90) or poached eggs ($13.90). I've been eating avocado on toast every morning so I opted for the eggs and was happy to discover that the gluten-free bread (which I assume is baked in-house) was no extra charge. Although the somewhat surly looking waiter who took my order answered that 'today it appears to be no extra charge' so it sounds like that may change sometimes.

Long black with milk on the side