Batch Espresso

Batch is like a home away from home. I walk in, feel automatically comfortable and get greeted with perfect service.
The staff are great, really relaxed. They’re attentive but not over the top. Hats off for good coffee and a menu that’s customizable but you don’t really need to be the extra sides involved. The main offers hit the spot, and the drinks menu (I love bubbles with my brunch) is ace.
I’d easily spend hours and hours there, reading, eating and drinking coffee after coffee.
Oh — and they have honey crunches. Winning!

Great food, service & atmosphere. Amasing coffee! One of the original coffee shops on the strip and still one of the best.

I found this Café on Unilocal — my go to for current reviews!
Wow! Thanks Unilocal — I was not disappointed.
My friend had already arrived so I sat down immediately. The staff greeted me immediately and offered coffee! They were friendly and attentive and took our order as soon as we were ready.
The food… YUM!!! I had the spicy potato rosti with a fried egg, rocket, harissa and crème fraîche (I can’t remember the delicious addition to the crème fraîche) and a side of bacon. The mocha coffee was awesome!
This place was small and busy, noisy and fun! A great place for a meal on a day off! Recommend this to anyone!

This place has the best coffee in melbourne. Food is amazing. Consistently one of the best performing cafes. Love it!
Come early on weekends or prepare for a wait!

A small café serving breakfast and lunch with a New Zealand twist. The coffee is consistently good, the omelettes are made from free range eggs and the bacon is crispy — what more do you want.

A friend brought me here based on reviews of their Bloody Marys. They were rich and spicy and made with 42 Below vodka.
They made a nice black coffee too using Coffee Supreme beans.
Rounding off this complete breakfast of vodka and coffee was their haloumi burger which was grilled and came with coleslaw and pickle relish.

Fantastic for breakfast. Went with good friends who are locals and who rightly swear by the place. Had the omlette and enormously fetching it was too. Loved every element. Beautiful coffee as well. Love the service too. Gorgeous NZ waitress with a bewitching smile and the fun manner to match. Doesn’t get much better.

Not a bad little café when I think about it I’ve had better coffee but I like the atmosphere of the place this is my first time here I had the all day breakfast which was very reasonably priced at $ 9.50 it really filled me up with every cent.
I’ve got this place bookmarked for the next time I’m I come passed on my way to work.

Not sure exactly why I have not yet written a review for this place.
I’ve been here a handful of times over the last year or so and have never really been enticed to coming back. It is a nice place, don’t get me wrong but definitely not the best in the area for coffee or atmosphere.
The coffee is not bad, they do a decent brew but not the best I’ve ever had. The black coffees I’ve had here have tended to be somewhat lacking of flavour.
I do love the deco of the place. Little bit of posters and what not here there and everywhere. I love that look and I really think it suites the place. The staff are friendly and accommodating. It is everything you need for a good café but I suppose it is just not for me. I’d rather some of the other places just down the road, you know the ones.

Beautiful strong creamy lattes, avo mash, potato hash, love love love.
Have been a weekend regular for five years and it’s pretty much perfect every time. Service is super efficient, especially when you have Deena looking after you, food is wonderful and the coffee is ace.
Can sometime be a little hipstery and sometimes a little too yummy mummy (why oh why do they bring their buggies inside, this place is the size of a postage stamp) but when you get a chilled out morning crowd it’s a great vibe.
Be prepared to wait around 15 – 30 minutes if you arrive after 9:00am but its worth the wait :-)

I love Batch Espresso’s method of waiting list. It’s transparent and you know exactly where you are in terms of the line. Look on the wall to see where you are up to and how’s this for a win — if you are next in line and a table of 4 is there when there are only 2 of you — you still are up. Winner.
I had the baked eggs, which being the greedy girl I was that day I added bacon to. Not required at all. Silly me.
However the baked eggs were lovely, nice hit of paprika and the chirizo hidden amongst the sauce made for some greedy bread dipping to get all that goodness.
The other thing I loved — how they gave you an individual portion of butter, throwing responsibility for excess butter consumption in your court. I personally think this is wonderful and more places should totally give you the choice.
The only thing I didn’t love — they wouldn’t leave a water bottle with us. I felt bad for constantly harassing the girl looking after our area, but I’m a thirsty girl. So that’s what I deducted a star for.
Otherwise, excellent vibe, friendly people and totally delicious. Will be back.

This is another one of those groovy cafes nestled alongside the bustling Carlisle Street strip.
It’s a rather small space, crammed with its dedicated customers.
Open for breakfast and lunch, the food is kept simple, but does combine some intriguing seasonal ingredients.
Plenty of options on the menu, and the award winning coffee is pretty darn good too if you like pretty darn good coffee!
Tip: Try to get here during the week before you overwhelm yourself with the weekend queues.

Great food and coffee, consistently — really, what more can you ask for?
I’ve been going to Batch for nearly 2 years on a weekly (sometimes more than weekly!) basis and I can truly say that I’ve not ever had a bad coffee, I kid you not. Strong, smooth, and without the astringent aftertaste of the coffees I’ve tasted in other cafes (whom shall remain nameless). Their food is also delicious — not fancy or complicated, but «simple with a twist,» honest, good food.
As for the service, sure, they aren’t out to be «buddy buddy» with you, but they are perfectly friendly and polite when they take your order, respond to any requests, and clear away the table. That’s enough for me.

Best breakfast on Carlisle St! Excellent coffee and great food with lots of great veg options. The menu changes seasonally, and riffs of standards but with a twist that lifts them to the next level (hazelnut meringue on the fruit salad, for example). One of my all-​time favorite places.

There are few cafes in Melbourne as consistently amazing as Batch. I salute you…
I had coffee here every day for about 9 months and can tell you that I never, ever had a brew that was less than perfect and the food is beautiful also.
One of the best things about this place is that they serve you coffee and food and leave you the fuck alone. They don’t want to make friends with you, they don’t want to shoot the breeze; they serve great coffee, drinks and food and that’s it. I take any insinuation that they’re rude as a bit of a window into the psyche of the insinuator. Like I said, I had coffee here for a long time and I never asked anything more of these people than they asked of me. After all, it’s a patron/​vendor relationship Abby E. They aren’t paid to be your buddy. And the fact that you drag PMS and racist remarks into your argument against these folk is more of a reflection on your lack of salt as a (obviously rather needy and uninformed) human being than any actual problem with the service here.

More like bitch, which ironically is ‘batch’ in New Zealandish. This review will probably be confusing to its readers because I am actually recommending this café. However, my partner and I frequented the joint at least once a week for about two years and not once were we offered just the slightest hint of recognition. We weren’t asked our names or given a familiar smile. In fact, they may have grown to hate us over time.
The staff members are notoriously hormonal — and not all of them are women. You would think that by now they would all be in menstrual sync but they manage to be temperamental and passive aggressive all month round.
Now that I’ve had a bit of a vent, I can move on to the positive things that kept me coming back every week for two years (and it wasn’t out of masochism). The café, in its cramped entirety, pays homage to the owner’s homeland of New Zealand. Odd knickknacks, like severed dolls’ heads and charms, rest along the paneled walls, and fresh seasonal flowers pop out from a deconstructed street sign.
The coffee is almost always good, and probably the best grind you’ll get on Carlisle Street. The Chai teas are uniquely delicious — I believe it’s the soy but don’t quote me on that. Batch is probably most famous for its avocado fetta mash. It’s a tired order by now but they were one of the first cafes to experiment with this combination. It’s best served with crispy bacon and the serving sizes are enormous. Pancakes and corn fritters are probably next on the list, depending on whose list your looking at and why they’ve gone to all the trouble of creating a list.
So I suppose I am recommending this place. I don’t go there anymore, but don’t let that put you off. I’m probably just oversensitive and perhaps a touch egocentric. Is it too much to ask them to lay flowers before my feet as I walk in to my reserved table?

I have to agree in raving about Batch’s amazing Avocado and Fetta Mash. Amazing, amazing, amazing. It might be cheating but I’m giving this place a 4 star rating solely for this one heavenly meal. Mashed avocado and fetta comes atop sourdough toast, all arranged to perfection. My advice would be to grab some lemon and tobasco on the side, the staff are more than happy to bring it out, and it makes for the ultimate flavour combination. Simple yet effective, this is probably my favourite breakfast ever. A big call perhaps, but I’m going to make it. I only wish I’d discovered this meal sooner.

I’m not sure if Batch is over-​rated or under-​rated in general but I rate it! I’m a huge «coffee snob» these days where my years in Melbourne have turned me into quite the coffee critic.
I think they make a great coffee. Carlisle St is an under-​rated street for café quality but Batch, among others, is a great place to go for coffee. The meals are pretty normal but usually well cooked and very tasty. People judge cafes on a lot of different areas but the number one for me is always coffee quality and if it’s good… then I go back!
I now walk down there and get take away coffees or will do a casual meet up with friends and it’s great. Maybe one downside is that there’s not a huge seating area but all the same it’s definitely a «rateable» place to go!

Avocado Feta Mash! Buy it, eat it, love it.
Generally you are put onto a waiting list to get into Batch on the weekends around brunch time but it is defiantly worth the wait. Sometimes the anticipation is half of the fun.
I love all the little details that make up the batch experience. Whether it’s the fresh fauna scattered around, the cute little milk jugs or the housing for the sugar. These are all the little things you notice when you wait for the always amazing food or coffee.