Best Brunch Ballarat: Top Cafes & Breakfast Spots

Ballarat's cafe and brunch scene is one of regional Victoria's finest, shaped by the city's extraordinary heritage (the 1850s gold rush architecture provides some of the most beautiful cafe settings in Australia), its proximity to the Daylesford and Hepburn Springs artisan food scene (50km north), and the city's large student population (Federation University and the Federation TAFE bring 15,000+ students to Ballarat, creating a strong market for quality cafes and affordable brunch). Sturt Street (Ballarat's grand tree-lined boulevard) and the Lydiard Street heritage strip provide the most celebrated cafe precincts in the city.

Lydiard Street and the Heritage CBD — Lydiard Street (Ballarat CBD) provides one of Australia's finest heritage commercial streetscapes and a remarkable cafe setting: the 1860s and 1870s bluestone and brick buildings that line Lydiard Street create an extraordinary backdrop for the specialty cafes and providores that have established themselves in the heritage precinct. Mr Jones (Sturt Street) and Babushka (Armstrong Street) provide outstanding specialty coffee and brunch in the heart of the Ballarat heritage CBD. The Craig's Royal Hotel (Lydiard Street, established 1853) provides a grand historic dining room brunch experience in the finest surviving Victorian-era hotel in Australia.

Bridge Mall and Sturt Street — Bridge Mall (Ballarat's pedestrianised shopping precinct) and the Sturt Street boulevard together provide Ballarat's most accessible urban cafe experiences, with a range of cafes from long-established Ballarat institutions to newer specialty coffee operations. The Saturday morning Sturt Street walk (from the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery to the Ballarat Farmers Market, with cafe stops along the way) is Ballarat's finest weekend morning experience.

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