First look: Moo & Chick

Posted on 21 April, 2022

It feels like the Palmer family were destined to set up a café. But it took a global pandemic to spur them into action.

Moo & Chick is the passion project of sisters Abbie and Sarah, and their mum and dad, Moo and Simon. But it is no ordinary family-run café.

Located in the small courtyard at the bottom of Woolley Street in Dickson where Sfoglia used to operate, Moo & Chick has all the warmth and bonhomie of a little suburban meeting place. Yet thanks to their Classic French-trained head chef, patrons are in for a very real treat when they order.

If your hollandaise isn’t made twice a day is it fresh enough to eat?

For one thing, when it comes to their Eggs Benedict, he is so obsessed about the hollandaise sauce that he makes it from scratch not once but twice a day to ensure it is fresh. And if you’re after “Avo on Toast”, you’ll get a finely sliced full half of avocado proudly spread on your sourdough rather than some mushed up offcuts.

Moo & Chick doesn’t skimp on the avo.

The cakes are made in-house including the caramelised Basque cheesecake, pecan pie and mini lemon meringue tarts, and there are also sandwiches and rolls on offer if you need to grab and go.

Baked daily for those on the run.

But the breakfast and lunch menu allow the kitchen to demonstrate exactly what it is made of when it pumps out delicious fare more likely to be experienced in a funky little bistro than a cafe.

Think Jamon Beurre, a French baguette with double smoked ham, dry cured capocollo (pork), butter, cornichons and eschalot pickle or the Caramel Caramel of brioche French toast with butterscotch, caramelised banana and vanilla icecream.

Moo & Chick’s Croque Madame, a veritable skyscraper of a toastie.

The lunch menu includes dishes such as Vanella Burrata with pressed puff pastry, vinocotto, heirloom tomato and candied pecan, and there’s also a 12-hour slow-cooked pork belly, with ginger soy dressing, broccolini, carrot pickle and corn puree.

While the girls are new to the hospitality game and such a menu might sound ambitious, their dad and his side of the family have a long and proud history running eateries across the city, while their mum, Moo, is a social butterfly and President of the Korean Canberra Community.

Who doesn’t love burrata?

“Mum just absolutely loves welcoming the customers and chatting to them, that’s very much her thing,” says Abbie.

Abbie and Sarah are both studying at the Australian National University although Abbie has deferred for a semester to focus on the café. She also has a sideline business as a social media drawing star (she has a TikTok audience of nearly 1 million @abbiekye and Instagram audience of 111,000 @abbie.kye).

It’s Abbie’s eye for design which has seen the café decked out in a ’70s supergraphic while tables are adorned with sweet little posies of dried flowers.

Floral flourishes abound at Moo & Chick.

It adds to the whimsy of the place which welcomes dogs and is run off its feet on the weekends despite only being open a month. “We have been really surprised by how busy it has been on Saturdays and Sunday, given how new we are,” Abbie says.

And what possessed them to make this momentous journey into the heart of Dickson?

“Well it was really the pandemic, we were all stuck at home together and we realised how important family was and connection to community so we wanted to create a really friendly, welcoming warm place that would bring people together.”

Lattes with a difference (but also plenty of Red Brick coffee going down too).

Sfoglia had been running successfully for 23 years, so when the family heard they wanted to sell, it seemed the time was right to take over the sunny little courtyard corner and put their mark on it.

It was a very friendly handover with the Sfoglia team training the girls up on their barista skills and Tim Manning from Red Brick coffee providing some mentorship along the way.

Now Sarah is so au fait with pumping out coffee orders she has also perfected some alternatives to caffeine – beetroot, turmeric and matcha lattes. And the matcha is worth finding a park on Woolley Street for alone.

Photography: Pew Pew Studio