Agnes Curran

By MARGIE THOMSON for canvas

I hesitate to mention the Edmonds Cookbook on an up-to-the-minute website such as this, but if that iconic recipe book haunts your domestic background, then visiting Agnes Curran, a new cafe just off Ponsonby Rd, will be a nostalgic experience.

Melting moments, Belgian biscuits, lamingtons - these cakes take me back to the Saturday afternoons of childhood. However, the way Agnes Curran does them, they are somewhat metamorphosed, quietly revved up with the touches you might expect in this neck of the woods: the melting moments joined with passionfruit icing, the lamingtons served split and oozing with thickened cream and boysenberry jam.

This is what people did before there was brunch - met for morning tea.

The menu is small but delectable. James, who has both high standards and forensic judgment, tried the Chicken Mustard Pie ($6.50) and pronounced it absolutely delicious, although microwaved, which meddled with the quality of the pastry.

However, it was when he took his first mouthful of the (wheat-free) Italian rice cake with tamarillo ($3.50) that he inadvertently uttered an expletive not repeatable here, but which simply meant he had discovered perfection. So creamy it only barely held together, this was for him an ideal synthesis of flavours and texture.

Meanwhile, I was having a similar experience with my little plum sponge cake ($3.50). So fresh and perfect, it crumbled delicately under my fork in a most ladylike fashion, and virtually melted away in my mouth.

We have also sampled the well-named melting moment, and the lamington, which was a far richer experience than lamingtons usually are. The chocolate coating is plentiful and the jam and cream make it what some people would call sinful, but I prefer to describe it as being at the far edge of extravagance, and a virtue for that very reason.

We have visited this little place three times now, and on earlier visits found the coffee passable, but a little disappointing. However, on the third visit my coffee was just right: stronger and richer than before, and a perfect accompaniment for the sweet, rich cake.

The cafe buys in some items from Panetton, and also offers soup and toast ($8.50), sophisticated filled rolls, a savoury lunch dish, and sausage rolls on weekends.

It's the decor that really sets Agnes Curran apart from, well, just about anywhere, other than an antique crockery shop. Eclectic is the word, and owner Cameron Woodcock (who named his enterprise after his grandmother) has filled the space with stacks of decorative and dining crockery - Crown Lynn, Wedgwood, Poole (all of it for sale) - and, on a large stainless steel table that runs the length of the small space, nerve-racking stacks of French farmhouse ceramics.

So many styles jumbled together might offend purists. As well as the stainless steel table, there's a long wooden farmhouse-style table also running the length of the space. Customers sit here on plywood stools, and at a couple of light metal cafe tables in the large picture window overlooking the intersection of Franklin and Ponsonby Rds.

It's tiny and rather cramped and, with all the breakables, probably not the best place to bring small children, although there are some outside tables.

But the service is relaxed and friendly and, above all, it's interesting, out-of-the-ordinary and delectable.

Entrance off Franklin Rd.

Parking: Try down the streets off Ponsonby Rd.

Ambience: Nostalgic, idiosyncratic charm.

Service: Relaxed yet efficient.

Open: Seven days, 9am-5pm.

* Read more about what's happening in the world of food, wine, party places and entertainment in canvas magazine, part of your Weekend Herald print edition.