This egg-yolk yellow cafe and its ‘Happiest Meal’ is a sunny way to start to the day

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I’m certain that Sydneysiders have lined up at Happyfield more than at any other cafe or restaurant this year. The queue for ramen can be longer at North Strathfield’s Kosuke, and the midday rush at Malay-Chinese Noodle Bar in Circular Quay is reasonably mad, but for perpetual customer turnover across breakfast and lunch, Happyfield leaves all other joints that don’t take bookings for dead. This naturally begs the question, why?

The Haberfield cafe opened in late 2020 and specialises in pancakes, eggs, hash browns and sausage-filled muffins. “That sounds an awful lot like a McDonald’s breakfast,” you might say, which is exactly the point.

The Golden Arches has spent half a century fine-tuning North American diner classics to provide the best crowd-pleasing breakfast of all the fast-food giants. Elevating that menu with better produce and technique is hardly a new chef trick, but I’ve rarely seen it done with so much polish. Of course Happyfield is ridiculously popular!

“The Happiest Meal”, especially, is a humdinger for all ages. Thirty-five dollars buys you a silver tray sporting two outrageously crunchy hash browns, a “McLovin Muffin” overflowing with velvety folded egg, yellow cheese and chicken sausage, and three pancakes of maximum sponginess ready to absorb as much butter and maple syrup as you want to throw at them.

Did you ever see those towering piles of pancakes in the John Candy film Uncle Buck and think, “Gee, I wish I could order a stack like that in Australia”? Well, at Happyfield you can: up to 15 of the oversized pikelets for $5 each.

You could also add a few strips of precision-grilled Canadian bacon ($5.50) at this point, but I often find this is a step too far. Start the day with bacon, butter and maple syrup, and where can you go? Foie gras for lunch and a schooner of caviar for dinner?

‘That sounds an awful lot like a McDonald’s breakfast,’ you might say, which is exactly the point.

Mercifully, you can avoid the queue for all this by giving your phone number to co-owner Chris Theodosi on the door, who’ll call when your table is ready. Maybe 20 minutes, maybe an hour, but always enough time to pick up the week’s salami and pasta from delicatessen-lined Ramsay Street.

Most soon-to-be customers choose to huddle near the entrance regardless, and weekend mornings are a broad congregation of dads in trucker caps, mums in all-day sweatpants and young couples just keen for a reliable brunch.

A quick survey of tables tells me that eggs “your way” on toast ($13) is a popular order bolstered by $5.50 sides, such as dukkah-spangled avocado and house-cured salmon.

After the pancakes, I’m most drawn to the soup and sandwich ($23): a classic American combination of salty-sweet tomato soup and toasted cheese rarely seen in Sydney. Owner-chef Jesse Orleans loads his toasted sanger with smoked scamorza, cheddar, mozzarella and Old Bay-spiced bechamel; it’s most definitely cheesy, but not to the point where your nose starts sweating and you need to worry about weird dreams.

There’s also a cheeseburger ($25) fat with miso-glazed onions and two smashed patties dripping meat juices and 1950s nostalgia. Love it. A heavy prawn katsu sandwich ($23) is punched up with fermented yuzu aioli on a squishy potato roll. Full marks; would order again.

Fried egg-topped sirloin ($34) is cooked well beyond medium-rare as requested, but my negroni is a competitive $16. You win some, you lose some.

Orleans was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, which means he also knows his way around that steakhouse staple, the wedge salad ($21). Cold, crisp iceberg is doused in bacon fat and apple cider vinaigrette that’s so delicious and silky it feels indecent. Radishes, green beans and baby cucumbers provide extra crunch, and the whole shebang might be good for you if it weren’t for the big lug of ranch dressing.

In early July, Theodosi and Orleans increased Happyfield’s capacity by 50 per cent after taking over the site next door. The new dining room is decked out in the same banquettes, exposed brick and egg yolk-yellow paint job as the rest of the place.

Theoretically, more space should mean shorter wait times, but I sense the brunch spot is set to become even busier. The branding is slick, word-of-mouth is strong, and the staff are warm and engaged and know how to make everybody feel like somebody.

On one visit, a syrup-drenched pancake stack is placed in front of a boy celebrating his fifth birthday and a whole-room sing-a-long of Happy Birthday ensues.

You don’t get that at McDonald’s every day; heck, I don’t think I’ve seen it at another Sydney cafe.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine