Homeslice in Fyshwick serving up delicious treats

Outside an assortment of cushions sit atop a long wooden bench, planter boxes bringing a touch of greenery to all the concrete and grey of the sidewalk. Inside, there's an eclectic mix of chairs and tables, more greenery, a blackboard with menu specials, little doodles, perhaps a greeting of the day.

It's like walking into the family kitchen. Which in some ways it is.

Owner Tess Thorburn has grown up around food. Her great grand-parents were importers of fine food, cheese, salami, truffles, in Czechoslovakia; her grand-mothers would often make food for their local communities during the war, looking for creative ways to deal with food shortages.

But it was her mother Janet's banana bread recipe which changed the course of Tess' life.

"I remember as a kid, waking up to the smell of mum's banana bread," she says.

"We'd come downstairs, tuck in, it was the perfect way to start a day."

Thorburn was working in hospitality and looking for a way to supplement her income and started selling mini loaves of the banana bread at the Old Bus Depot Markets, a bite of love tied up in a little ribbon.

"People were loving them so much I moved to making big loaves, and selling them to cafes."

She was working out of her tiny apartment in Lyneham, "climbing up and down three sets of stairs every time I headed off to the markets, with a small oven, a tiny kitchen".

She didn't want to compromise and take on more clients when she knew she didn't have the capacity for growth.

So in September 2018 she found the space in Fyshwick, the kitchen allowed her to expand the wholesaling business, and she jumped at the chance to put a little cafe out front.

"But it all comes back to the banana bread," she says. There are seven versions: original, walnut, blueberry, apple cinnamon, raspberry coconut, blueberry ricotta and choc-chip. She's not giving away too many secrets, she says, but it's all about the level of ripeness of the bananas.

"There's a bit of science to it," she says.

"And it's about the technique of folding in the flavours ... every single banana bread is made in a different way, it's about the layering process, it needs to be done a certain way.

"One of the biggest things I tell my staff, and always carry through wherever I go, is there has to be every flavour in every bite."

Thorburn says early on she decided to experiment to see what would happen if she made the bread vegan.

"I took my mum's recipe and I thought what if I made it vegan, would it alter the flavour.

"It ended up making it a lot better ... a substitute for eggs in vegan cooking is banana, it turns out the breads are so tasty because they're chock full of bananas. It was a great discovery."

Thankfully, mum approved the changes.

As well as this family recipe, there's a mars bar slice handed down through generations, American style pancakes that were another childhood favourite and Thorburn's own chocolate cups which are a little mouthful of decadence in peanut butter caramel, crunchy peanut butter caramel, pretzel, caramel popcorn, Bounty (coconut) and Oreo flavours.

But it's not just a place for those with a sweet tooth. There are a few burgers, salads, a fresh range of sandwiches and toasties, some pizza bagels changing regularly. Thorburn uses Veneziano coffee and knows in the educated Canberra market that good coffee is a must.

"I want people to come here and feel like they are at home, I want the food to taste as good as it can, look as good as it can, and for there to be an energy through it all. It's all important for someone's experience here."

Homeslice, 70 Barrier Street, Fyshwick. Open Monday-Friday 6.30am-2pm, Saturday 8am-2pm. homesliceco.com.au