Back from the Oz Day weekend that wasn't, MMC and friend meet a very significant other for coffee in Adelaide Arcade. A News Limited food writer we'd Love to name, we had hoped to talk blog over brilliant coffee. Ciao looked the wood-panelled part, an arcade island at the Grenfell-ian end. We talked, we were snapped, and we got the coffee. The Orders: one skinny cappucino, one medium flat white, one small latte. The Prices: smalls at $3.20.Adelaide Arcade sure is pretty. Large and leadlit, it's chockas with old-school servicepeople - cobblers, tailors, milliners and chocolatiers. Built in 1885, it was the first mall in Australia to boast electric lights. With irony, or just bad luck, its 1887 caretaker died from a fall into the generator; he was investigating a flickering light. Ciao looks to be capitalising on trad cultcha a la Italiano cafe. The Shopspace: we've wrought-iron signage, and a gracious counter top for talkative takeaways and on-the-run have heres. At a glance, it's humming, happy and high-quality.
Upsizing on early-ness, MMC has time to vibe-scout before friends and foodies arrive. Screeching a clunky chair inwards, there are odd glances from a sparse and settled clientèle. At predictably peak hour patronage, traffic is paltry at best. One to two staff slog on unsmilingly, and the Melbourne magic isn't materialising. MMC's party places orders with a surly and silent barista, and settles at one of too many free tables. The Service: efficient, but nil on frills.
It's quick, it's on the way, and it's in Adelaide Arcade: why are the punters shy of Ciao coffee? Have they spied the caretaker's ghost between button shop and battery bar? Allegedly captured on 2008 security footage, the ethereal element could draw a whole new demographic. An 'unexplained mysteries' forum friend writes of the ghost, 'I like it. It looks like a light being to me... It is a good catch and it proves that our technology is making it possible for those to come through the veil and interact with us.' See the footage and LLOL (literally, laugh out loud).
Alas, MMC is a supernatural sceptic and, some say, a coffee cynic. If you don't believe in ghosts, we'll give you another reason not to visit Ciao. It's ESP - especially substandard produce. Our famous foodie, no fanatic, notes this coffee's peculiar after-effect - a dry sharpness that steals salivary equilibrium. The Pour: a dry, foamy milk, and the cappuccino is 'traditional' in the bad sense. We're a little embarrassed, and a lot thirsty.
The Lesson: Ciao could do location, work station and celebration. But as the journo jots down MMCisms, coffee unquality is an elephant in the Arcade. The morning coffee mission ends in days, and we can hardly name a consistent commuter cafe. Is the CBD just a sea of average?
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