Hit this Fremantle cafe for ace brunching, then return after dark for modern bistro thrills (if you can get a seat)

The Cool Room is one of Fremantle’s hottest, most interesting cafes.

I write this with confidence, knowing full well that the standard of brunching across Freo is high; that hotness is at odds with the low-Celsius connotations of the cafe’s name; and that The Cool Room, having turned one in August, is way past its honeymoon period, so people aren’t seeking it out (just) because it’s new.

Rather, many are drawn to this suburban cafe because it’s old. Or looks old, at least.

They come to admire the retro beauty of this former butcher dressed with mismatched, garage sale-direct furniture and accessories.

The result is a timeless, broadly Aussie reimagining of Grandma’s house that is free of potpourri but full of Freo types.

Here’s a white-haired bloke with boardies and shapely calves. Over there, 20-somethings coo at a fat tyre bike. A young couple with small kids and a big dog turn the corner and see the crowd. Immediately, their brows furrow in a way that says, Goldilocks-style, “who’s been ordering alt-milk lattes in my local cafe?”

If you’re a first-timer and the place is heaving, it can be hard to tell when The Cool Room ends and when Old Values – the vintage op-shop next door – starts.

Such confusion is testament to both the demand for weekend tables and the knack that Charlotte Beeton and Drew Dawson, owners of The Cool Room, have for vintage styling. This affinity with yesteryear is also evident in their food offering: familiar, brunch dishes that, at their best, both comfort and quietly surprise diners.

There is a plush omelette filled with whipped chevre packing more flavour than anything this lightweight has any right to. There is also an aspirational bacon and fudgy yolk fried egg bap: a morning-after lifesaver that is to servo bacon and egg rolls as former gas lobbyists are to by-election success.

There is also a very convincing take on the a la mode Scandinavian breakfast plate starring a soft-boiled egg, waxy rectangles of semi-firm Tilsit cheese from Dellendale Creamery in Denmark, granola plus a sourdough bun studded with white sesame seeds. (The bun, meanwhile, is baked at the cafe, as are most of the breads, biscuits and cakes served.)

On paper, none of these dishes sound especially ground-breaking, yet time after time, The Cool Room’s versions of these cafe classics tasted finer, livelier and more focused than what you’ll get around town.

One reason that explains the above: provenance. People like to talk about sourcing seasonal and local ingredients. This is one place where you can really taste it. (Still, there’s a blackboard by the entrance shouting out the cafe’s suppliers.)

Another explanation: confident seasoning. Salt seems to be in everything here. It’s on the end of a sundae spoon served with the soft-boiled eggs on the brekky plate. It’s in the addictive granola bulked up with arcs of toasted coconut and pumpkin seeds candied in maple syrup. And it also helps emphasise the spicy richness of malleable chocolate and rye cookies.

One aspect of The Cool Room that isn’t salty, however, is its service. Luka Burger and Georgia Gillett are a warm presence on the coffee machine while upbeat front-of-house personality Hannah Jawad feels like she’s constantly here, there and everywhere.

While brunch is The Cool Room’s soda bread and cultured butter, the cafe also hosts Friday dinner services that show off the restaurant pedigree of Dawson (formerly of Lola’s and Nieuw Ruin in Fremantle, plus Melbourne’s Napier Quarter) and kitchen offsiders Olympia James-Ainslie, Rosie Fowkes and Megan Sullivan.

It’s also why writing this review has taken longer than I had hoped. The difficulty of snagging a booking suggests that many are already across the pleasures of this weekly offering. (Dinner is an $80 three-course set menu plus an additional fiver for corkage; only 28 seats are available each Friday.) But if this is news to you, this is one Friday dinner worth making happen.

While night mode sees tables set with (real!) candles and the playlist’s jazz-funk tunes reduced to a bassy hum by enthusiastic guests, the kitchen takes the same unshowy attitude to dinner as it does brunch.

Sweet parker buns ride shotgun alongside a slab of poised chicken terrine shot through with a coin of confit leek. Thick, room-temperature slices of pink blade beef are cloaked by an aerated mess of horseradish-spiced sour cream. While the dish’s lightness struck me as a WeightWatchers-approved vitello tonnato – and I write that in a very good, very I-could-eat-this-all-summer kind of way – it’s more than likely a nod to the British heritage of Dawson.

Not that our man has any aspirations to be the next Fergus Henderson or anything. Instead, like many of his peers, such introspection is simply one cook’s pursuit of nostalgic flavours from his past.

I had zero idea that flapjacks were a classic British oat bar, but my ignorance didn’t hinder my enjoyment of Beeton’s rendition (cleverly crunched up with buckwheat) one bit.

I do, however, feel foolish that I didn’t get that the intriguing lilt of cumquat in a Friday night chocolate mousse dessert was an homage to England’s famous Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

But like I was saying, it can be tricky to tell when old values end, and The Cool Room begins.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.