The Journal

Ph: (03) 9650 4399; Shop 1 Level 1, 253 Flinders la, MELBOURNE 3000

cafe, $ -
Open Lunch weekdays; Licensed; No Cards

Mietta's Review
The new venture by Con Christopoulos (Degraves, European, Supper Club) can feel like a library reading room with its shelves of books and overhead lights - perhaps because it's part if the CAE's Flinders Lane campus. The main business during the day is coffee and food and at night it becomes a wine bar with some platters to dilute the bounty of the bar. Journal has a succinct menu a range of snacks, good coffee and even better prices.

Other published opinions

Herald Sun 24-06-08 Score: ** "Herald Sun A bare-bones room with plain tables and schoolroom chairs"

The Age Cheap Eats 2008 "Don't we love that movie moment when the buttoned-up librarian tosses her glasses, shakes her hair and is reborn as the impossibly hot vamp? Next to the City Library, Journal, with its Deco fitout and reclaimed bookshelf-as-light-fixture, is no slouch in the looks department"

The Age Cheap Eats 2008 "Bookworms at the City Library have a new lunchtime distraction. Head into the CAE, take a hard right, climb a few stairs and you'll be perched at the counter, sipping Italian plonk and grazing on antipasto before you can say Giovanni Robinson"

The Age Dani Valent, 15-1-2008 "Antipasto is one of the great litmus tests of the culinary world. Bad restaurants think they can get away with lazy sausage, slimy ham and spongy olives. Middling restaurants (that is, most of them) might pad out decent meat with sloppy dips or chewy eggplant. You can almost hear the kitchen's question: how can we make this crap look like $15? A really good restaurant, such as Journal Canteen, thinks about its antipasto differently"

Herald Sun Eat, Simon Plant, 15-09-07 "MONSTER menus worry me. Far from inspiring confidence, they suggest the kitchen is trying to cover all bases ... and doing none of them properly. So, my confidence soars when I climb the stairs to Journal Canteen. In this bare-bones dining room, a sibling to Journal Cafe next door, the blackboard lists antipasto, a soup, a pasta, two mains and a couple of sweets. That's it. But what Journal offers each day is so precisely executed, so perfectly in tune with the season, further choices are unnecessary."

The Age Matt Preston, 17-9-2007 "With places such as The European, Melbourne Supper Club and The Commercial Bakery, owner Con Christopoulos has had the sort of run of hits that would make Farnesy jealous. And cook Rosa Mitchell used to do the lunches at the lovely and much-loved Gertrude Street Enoteca (run by Epicure columnist Brigitte Hafner). Here, Mitchell's brand of home-style Italian food, which looks in equal part to Sicily and to her mum for inspiration, hits all the right buttons - rustic, peasant and artisan. It's a great location. Windows that look up Centre Place and along Flinders Lane make the cream leather stools lining the walls of this first-floor room the prime lunch perch. The rest of the furniture plays on a basic old-schoolroom feel, with a mix of high benches and ordinary tables."

The Age Cheap Eats 2007 "You could picture Picasso drinking short blacks at Journal, so rife are the communal tables with Melbourne's arts community. The cafe's art deco, bookish vibe suits them, along with the cool service and flavoursome hand-pumped coffee."

The Age Cheap Eats 2006 the hopefulness of those who've enrolled in CAE Italian so they might meet their Romeo (or Bianca). After class they come next door, where low lighting, communal tables, a short blackboard menu and a longer wine list set the scene.

The Age Cheap Eats 2005 "Most patrons aren't hitting the books, however. They're catching up on goss over good food that doesn't require too much analysis"

Age A2 Thomas Hunter 16/10/04 "A successful cafe is a curious mix of simplicity and sophistication. Customers appreciate stylish decor, confident yet casual staff, and a handy list of meals but they also like to be fed fast, with a minimum of fuss, and for a reasonable sum."

The Age Take 5 Roslyn Grundy 15/8/04 "the best-read text here is the pithy menu, offering a changing selection of filled-to-order rolls, two or three salads, a soup and a hot dish."

Herald Sun Donna Coutts 3/7/04 score 15/20 "Beautiful building, good cafe food and service. Come in from the cold."