Cafe review: Hazel Hayes a hidden treasure

So you take a café, tuck it into a crack-in-the-wall spot on the seedy end of Victoria Street next to the adult shops, make your signage really small and don't mention the word "café" in your name. You're doomed, right?

Not, apparently, if you are Hazel Hayes. This place does the implausible, and it's packed on a weekday morning. The north end of downtown Hamilton is dying at the moment; shops all around the café are shutting up, and yet Hazel Hayes is hopping with all sorts: businessmen and women, two young mothers with children, an older lady I recognize from Raglan, and it feels the way a downtown cafe should.

Nick orders the homemade hash browns with poached eggs, Portobello mushrooms, spinach and hollandaise sauce ($15.50). The hash browns turn out to be scrumptious balls of mashed potato and herbs, fried with crispy outers and creamy inners, delicious. His eggs are underdone with some of the whites still runny, but the hollandaise is excellent.

I made up my mind on a menu item, but when I got to the counter to order I spotted a vegetarian quesadilla in the cabinet, and I'm glad I did. For a miserly $7,

I got a gorgeous toasted wheat tortilla pregnant with buttery, decadent, roast vegetables (who knew vegetables could be decadent?) with just enough seasoning to keep it from being bland.

The menu here, as well, deserves an honourable mention for creativity: free range black pudding, anyone?

Dainty long black from Hazel Hayes

Dainty long black from Hazel Hayes. Photo: Mackenzie McCarty

Yummy Supreme brand espresso (my long black was $3.50) and cute retro décor complete this place. Restraint has been shown though, and you don't feel (too much) like you're at nana's house circa 1955.

Adorable coffee cups in pastel green with gold trim, a little silver "Queen Charlotte Sound" teaspoon and toy cars for table numbers, the details really make this place.

Staff were busy, but friendly, and parking wasn't too hard since this is the unpopular end of Victoria St. We will definitely be back.

4 ½ stars

Hazel Hayes

587 Victoria Street Hamilton Central, Hamilton 3204

(07) 839 1953

- THE WAIKATO INDEPENDENT