Adhika, Rushcutters Bay serves Filipino breakfasts
The new Rushcutters Bay cafe is a win for anyone looking for new adventures in Filipino breakfast and matcha.
Have you ever dipped a spoon into a tin of Milo and poured a mountain of nutty cocoa-malt grains directly into your mouth? Adhika co-owner Aileen Aguirre believes every child in the Philippines does this, and the ritual inspired the menu at her new cafe in Rushcutters Bay.
Aguirre and fellow chef Francis Dela Cruz are known for showcasing their home country’s flavors: They launched Darlinghurst’s Takam in 2023 with their creative Filipino-inspired brunches, then transformed it into a dinner-focused venue with cocktails and wines.
They opened Adhika (with Takam’s Giannina Abiva and new business partners Nonie Ferrer and Christopher Lumapas) in September, and it’s a win for diners who missed how they channeled the Philippines into Sydney’s breakfast scene.
The iced Milo latte, with its caffeinated Campos Superior blend and floating powdery crunchy mass, taps into memories of their youth. It was so ingrained in the Philippines that they didn’t realize Milo was Australian until they opened Adhika. Debuting at the Sydney Royal Easter Show in 1934, Thomas Mayne’s chocolate malt powder was originally a “health tonic” for children and is now adopted everywhere from Jamaica to Nigeria.
Adhika’s caramelized pancakes evoke a hint of banana: a beloved Filipino street food in which the main fruit is cooked until it’s burstingly sweet. Here, the patties are coated in butter, honey, and brown sugar and pan-tanned until the outside becomes dark and crispy.
It tastes like breakfast enhanced with afternoon tea. Imagine a charred pancake accompanying banana bread and muffins, thanks to the side of blackcurrant jelly, whipped cream, and banana haleya (Filipino jam). When I first saw it on the menu, I Googled “haleya” to find out more, and the team encourages that curiosity. We hope Adhika’s dish can “open a door” [where we can speak] it’s about our heritage, our culture and our cuisine,” says Aguirre.
Hamon bulakenya, for example, is served on special occasions (and is important in the Bulacan region), but for Dela Cruz, it reminds me of the festive season in the Philippines, when offices give out so much meat for Christmas that you end up with “five hams in the fridge.” Adhika’s hamon bulakenya is a three-day commitment: Byron Bay pork neck cured, braised in a pineapple-rum-beer sauce, coated in brown sugar and slow-cooked.
Dela Cruz says hamon bulakenya is in decline because it’s “too boring” (some approaches take five days), but it survives here as a breakfast pastry with greens. cheese and barbecue sauce. My boyfriend says it’s the perfect blend of bacon and egg roll. It’s served on soft pandesal bread from Doonside’s Starlight Bakery, which has been baking Filipino loaves since 2000. The custom-made rolls required three months of tweaking in the oven, and they’re an especially great platform for Adhika’s sandwich, which is covered in thick slices of cheese and egg.
The drinks are also noteworthy. The obligatory use of matcha is as psychedelic as a 1960s album cover: vibrant green tea hues contrast with bright purple flecks of jam and cream flavored with ube, the sweet but tender root vegetable that powers many Filipino desserts.
My favorite thing to sip at Adhika is Takam’s leche flan latte, which cleverly reuses leftover Filipino creme caramel. Flavored with cream, sea salt flakes, and espresso, and served with more tartness in the cup, this coffee tastes like a caramel-rich Vietnamese coffee: unapologetically sweet, delicious, and worth refilling multiple times.
Adhika means “dream” in Tagalog, and the place is wistfully adorned with pandesal art, jeepneys and other ornaments evocative of the Philippines. It’s lively rather than museum-like, similar to the way the cuisine energetically uses staple Filipino flavors to map out Sydney’s multicultural cafe culture. It’s all done with the childlike joy of munching on pure Milo.
Three more Filipino restaurants to try
Come on Chon
The smoky air hints at signature items: charcoal-roasted whole pork and pork belly charred atop coconut husk briquettes. Don’t miss the tortang talong, the twice-cooked eggplant omelette (add DIY wavy banana ketchup as desired).
7 Gleeson Avenue, Sydenham, instagram.com/lets_chon
tita
This rainbow-coloured Filipino cafe sent a colorful jolt through the Marrickville station precinct when it opened last year. A good dose of purple saturates the menu, from polvoron cake to ube churros oat latte. Tita has announced it will transition to a restaurant, but pandesal muffins and some breakfast favorites will remain in the new era.
Store 4, 359 Illawarra Road, Marrickville, instagram.com/tita.marrickville
Kariton
This Melbourne import offers one of the best gelato flavors on the market: turon. Caramelized spring roll pastry chips and muscovado butterscotch evoke deep-fried plantain and jackfruit in cone-friendly form. The freezer cabinet also offers Filipino Aussie staples, including an ube-enhanced version of Golden Gaytime and coconut-pandan lamingtons.
173 Burwood Road, Burwood, karitonsorbetes.com
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