Deus Ex Machina cafe

On Parramatta Rd in Camperdown lies an intriguing store for anyone with even a curious interest in motorcycles: Deus Ex Machina. OK, it's a motorcycle shop; big deal. But it's a very nice looking shop that emphasises the aesthetic beauty often found in motorcycles. After all, the name literally means God out of a machine.

However, fully half the building is devoted to a cafe, and it's wonderful. It's a large space with nice design and artwork. Large communal tables, designer chairs, ample sofas, huge speakers playing nice soft background music, a few vintage motorcycles around the place, good menu and prices. Altogether, it's remarkable. And despite having driven past the place many times, I was pretty much unaware of the existence of this cafe until a friend mentioned it.

The coffee (latte) had a great texture and good but not great flavour (a little sour). I'm prepared to believe that's a one-off. You wouldn't go to the effort of creating an excellent cafe without creating excellent coffee.

The icing on the cake is the reading material available. In many cafes you're lucky to get your hands on today's newspaper. Deus has about 20 back-issues of The New Yorker on its magazine table. (Ohhhhh Yeaahhhhh....) The Newtown cafe Campos, apart from its sublime coffee and great atmosphere, is the only cafe I know of that equals Deus in this respect, with its selection of The Economist magazines to read. Why can I only name two Sydney cafes with this feature?

After sipping and reading for quite a while, I wandered through to the motorcycle emporium. My goodness, some beautiful machines in there. If it weren't such a dangerous proposition, I would seriously using one as my major mode of transport at some time in the future. Maybe as fuel prices go up and up, the long-term future of personal transport is the motorcycle. If the majority of vehicles on the road were motorcycles, collisions wouldn't be so calamitous.

Visit the cafe's website for more information and some nice pictures.