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New ZealandFlavors · Sydney
Espresso coffee with steamed milk and a thin layer of foam, stronger in coffee than a latte. The best-known menu record is from a café in Sydney in 1985; New Zealand contests the drink’s origin.
Traditional drink from Sydney, Nova Gales do Sul
Also known as: flat whites
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Flat white — Sydney, Australia
The flat white is a coffee made with espresso, often double, and steamed milk, topped with a thin layer of microfoam—the tiny-bubbled foam that leaves the surface smooth and glossy. It has more coffee relative to milk than a latte and less foam than a cappuccino, and it preserves the espresso crema. In Australia it is commonly served in a ceramic cup; when well made, it leaves marks on the cup wall with each sip.
The origin is disputed. In 1985, café owner Alan Preston put the flat white on the permanent menu of his café in Sydney’s Chinatown and keeps photos of that menu; this is the best-known menu record of the drink. Preston, who is from northern Queensland, says he brought the idea from cafés in the sugar towns, where Italian cane-farming families drank their coffee with milk “flat,” without high foam.
New Zealand also claims the creation of the flat white, notably tied to Wellington’s café tradition. There are additional claims linked to England. No definitive proof ends the debate.
The flat white spread through Australian cafés from the 1980s onward, along with espresso culture brought by Italian and Greek immigrants, and later reached cafés worldwide. There are also regional name and size variations: in Melbourne, for example, there is the magic, with a double ristretto espresso in a smaller cup.
Sydney , Nova Gales do Sul
The best-known menu record of the flat white is from a café in Sydney’s Chinatown in 1985; the drink’s origin is disputed with New Zealand.
Espresso, often double, and steamed milk with a thin layer of microfoam.
Hot, in a ceramic cup, preferably just after it’s prepared. Order it as a flat white at the counter; sugar on the side, to taste.
All year round, especially in the morning and mid-morning.
Your questions
A coffee with espresso, often double, and steamed milk topped by a thin layer of microfoam. It has more coffee relative to milk than a latte and less foam than a cappuccino.
The origin is disputed. There is a photographed menu from a Sydney café, dated 1985, that includes the drink. New Zealand also claims its creation.
The flat white has more coffee and less milk, and the foam is a thin, smooth layer. The latte uses more milk and has a slightly taller layer of foam.
The most common names are short black (espresso), long black (espresso over hot water), flat white, latte, and cappuccino.
Flavors of Australia
Meat pie served in a deep plate of thick pea soup, usually turned upside down and topped with tomato sauce. It was the dish of the food carts that sold late‑night food in central Adelaide since the 19th century.
Sweet yeasted dough, fried, split on the side and filled with raspberry or strawberry jam and whipped cream, with sugar on the outside. In South Australia it was called a Berliner until World War I, when it acquired the name of the British marshal Lord Kitchener.
Cube of sponge cake dipped in a thin chocolate coating and then in dry shredded coconut. It is named after Lord Lamington, governor of Queensland, and the most accepted version places its creation at the governor’s official residence in Brisbane around 1900.
Chinese-Australian dumpling with a thick wrapper, filled with pork and vegetables, steamed or fried. It originated as an adaptation of the Cantonese siu mai made in Melbourne’s Chinatown in the 1940s and spread through the country’s fish-and-chips shops.
