First Look: Espresso Room’s NewActon destination café

Posted on 15 January, 2024

Heading back to work after the Christmas break can be a wrench. But if you work anywhere near NewActon, this is the day you may be forgiven for doing a little dance.

Espresso Room is opening a long-awaited café in the Nishi building and, boy, she is fancy!

Building owners Centuria are investing heavily in a statement café for the ground floor (previously the home of Makeshift by Redbrick Coffee), which will cater to corporate workers, guests of the three nearby hotels, the learned folk from the neighbouring ANU campus, as well as the increasing number of apartment dwellers making the area home.

Espresso Room founder Michael Rose has been given the keys to the new operation to make it his own. Michael is partners with ONA Coffee guru and world champion barista Sasa Sestic and together they’ll bring a world-class coffee experience to the lucky locals.

Michael’s other business is Wildflour Bakery, so not only are we talking superior coffee, but a selection of gourmet sandwiches and salads, pies and savoury pastries as well as some of Wildflour’s cult favourite sweet treats (have you even seen their croissant range?).

There will be sushi from Sushi Sushi as well as selected fresh loaves of Wildflour bread to take away.

Michael said he was excited to get a foothold in NewActon and loved the mix of corporate and community that existed there.

“When Centuria invited me into the spot I couldn’t say no. NewActon is a really unique part of the city and we are excited to move in!”

While this week will be a soft launch (and don’t come at us if the bread sells out before you make it in!) Mick has plans to establish a dark kitchen in a separate area next to the café in order to offer a wider menu. Until then, it will be grab-and-go-style food.

While the coffee is enough to get excitement levels rising, the kicker to this announcement is that Espresso Room at NewActon has got to be one of the most glamorous cafes this city has ever seen.

Designed by Melissa Twidale at IA Design, the brief was to create a café in sync with the urban luxury of NewActon, bearing in mind that it sits below Canberra’s most iconic staircase within Hotel Hotel and needs to hold its own style-wise.

IA Design has given the space a strong design ethos, breaking the vast long space into zones for group dining, lounging, quiet contemplation, private chats and work.

From terrazzo floor tiles, bronzed perforated sheet metal and bespoke joinery pieces to textured surfaces topped with luxurious velvets and vegan leathers, it’s a place where the workers upstairs at Austrade could happily host an international delegation.

The seats and sofas come from Miniforms (Italy), Pedrali (Italy) and Sedis (Australia) with a Biophilic Inlay Carpet featuring the design of Dunes by New Zeland designer Ashley Rose Oswin.

Michael and Sasa plan to use the glamorous space to host coffee events and Michael said he may open to hiring it out for private functions, once things settle down.

Just as long as no-one spills an expertly brewed coffee on the eye-wateringly expensive sofas…