No latte art, no espresso machine: This Surrey Hills cafe brews beans the old-fashioned way

Melbourne hospitality legend Paul Mathis has opened (and closed or sold) more than 20 restaurants and cafes since the early 1980s, but the latest project has the serial disrupter feeling terrified.

“This is so unknown, the scariest thing,” says Mathis, who has been out of the hospitality game for more than a decade. The fearsome entity in question is a bright 20-seat cafe he recently opened in Surrey Hills, opposite the number 70 tram terminus. So what’s so scary about The Stovetop Sessions?

“There are 54,000 cafes in Australia,” says Mathis. “They all have an espresso machine. Except this one.” The wedge-shaped corner building has clear sightlines: there’s no sleek four-group coffee contraption blocking the view of the barista. Instead, coffees are brewed on induction hotplates in single-cup Bialetti moka pots or in copper briki, the long-handled pots used for brewing Greek (and Turkish and Arabic) coffee.

“I feel that coffee reached a plateau and became a little samey,” he says. “I wasn’t excited to walk into a place, see a guy hunched over a cup and get another coffee with tulip latte art. I asked, ‘What’s the next thing? What is different?’”

These are questions Mathis has been pondering for 40 years. He answered them with Joe’s Garage, a collision of bohemia and buzz on Brunswick Street in 1989, then Bluetrain and Automatic in Southbank in the 1990s, energetic hangouts that helped Melbourne fall back in love with the Yarra River. He was the original Federation Square restaurateur, opening Chocolate Buddha, Transport and Taxi in the early noughts.

“I wasn’t excited to walk into a place, see a guy hunched over a cup and get another coffee with tulip latte art.”

Paul Mathis

Mathis expressed his environmental angst at St Kilda’s vegetarian SoulMama in 2002, then Melbourne Central’s SOS (sustainable seafood) and 100 Mile Cafe (paddock to plate), both of which were ahead of their time. He was a founding operator at South Wharf, too. The entrepreneur’s last venture, vegan diner Supercharger in Prahran, closed 11 years ago.

Since then, Mathis has been noodling away at other projects, including a hygienic shared sugar spoon for cafes. But for two years, he’s been all about stovetop espresso.

“I’ve been making 600 coffees a month at home,” he says of his testing process. “I prefer this coffee. I think it’s richer. There’s more complexity and differentiation.”

After thousands of trials, he’s devised a quirky brewing method for the new cafe.

Beans – a secret blend made by a “dark roaster” – are pre-weighed into 18-gram batches and then ground to order. Preheated water awaits in insulated kettles so the brewing process is a little speedier than normal. Mathis lines each Bialetti coffee basket with a paper filter, a hack he says smooths out the brew. He warms milk on the stove, then pours it into a French press to froth vigorously by hand. It foams nicely, “but we don’t do latte art,” says Mathis.

If you order a moka pot, you’ll be served a tray with the espresso pot for DIY pouring, a jug of warm milk and a biscuit. There are self-serve pastries by artisan bakery Penny For Pound and a selection of $12 toasties. Fun fillings include mortadella with pineapple, passata and mozzarella, and goat’s cheese with apricot jam and thyme.

A sign welcomes customers with a warning that their coffee may take up to five minutes to make. “It’s a fast world, but we’re hoping people can find time to embrace the slow,” says Mathis.

Open Mon-Fri 8am-3.30pm.

1125 Riversdale Road, Surrey Hills, 0438 845 302