Youeni Foodstore – Castle Hill

I’ve been meaning to check this place out for maybe six months but you know… I keep not wanting to walk that extra five minutes down the road. I’m sad I was lazy in the past because Youeni is great! Really good coffee, clean and delicious food and freshly squeezed juice… what more can you ask for?
This café has a great vibe as well and doubles as a bakery as well! There are so many delicious baked goods on offer you could totally try a new one every week. There was an amazing salted caramel layer cake sitting on the counter when I paid for my breakfast… it was very enticing. I really like that there are heaps of gluten free options for those out there that need that. Their homemade house loaf is gluten free and I tried it with my avocado on toast and it was really great so I recommend it even if you aren’t gluten intolerant!
The portion sizes are really big and I left feeling super full and really satisfied… definitely worth that extra 5 minute walk!

Great coffee and great food!
However, Coffee is a little overpriced and undersized regardless of how good it tastes.
We want good food and value for money also.
Recommend giving them a try though!

Favourite Saturday brunch place that fills you up till dinner time. The healthy creations taste so awesome and different that you don’t even notice it’s all very healthy and good food.
The coffee are not to bad either. I usually go for a red or green juice and for breakfast I always try something different.
A favourite is the avo and protein with a side of poached egg and roast lamb!
It’s a bit pricey but honest the portions are so big and filling you be happy as. The staff are extremely friendly and chatty.

Delicious food, great friendly staff. Consistently positive experience.
The lamb sandwich is an awesome choice — it’s simply delicious. The buckwheat pancakes are awesome too.
There’s plenty of spaces to sit and there’s always some cool music playing giving it a relaxed hip place to be.

The Youeni was definitely a remarkable breakfast experience. The layout of the food store is stunning with fresh produce, ball glasses and the fresh smell of juice to entice you to order a freshly squeezed lemon juice with your meal. The staff are lovely and friendly and the food was divine. I had the pumpkin pie buckwheat pancake — spiced cashew ‘ricotta’, stewed figs, banana, coconut, seed mix for $ 16.90.

The best coffee in Castle Hill by far, they also have fresh cakes, muffins & biscuits all of which look delicious. It can get very busy at lunch times so ensure you have enough time to wait for your coffee & food.

Good food good staff. Good coffee. Good music. Good atmosphere. It’s simple to say this is a good place. Can get pretty busy but such is life at good places. Give it a try and tell me im wrong

Situated on the corner of Old Northern Rd and Cecil Avenue this food store, bakery and café is great for brunch or a lazy lunch. They offer breakfast, lunch and takeaway.
Arrived around 11.45am on a Sunday and the place was packed so we found an outdoor table. You order and pay at the counter. We got the breakfast plate which consists of roasted honey glazed ham, smoked salmon, boiled eggs, toast, condiments and the Chicken Congee which includes chicken, brown rice, broccoli, ginger, shallots and a fried egg.
Coffee’s arrived quickly, Staff are friendly and efficient. Chicken congee was super hot! As in oven hot so be careful! I was hungry and an eager beaver so ended up burning my tongue. ouch! It was quite filling too.
Great first time experience. Close to Castle towers in case you need to do retail therapy after. Cool, cute and tasty foodie joint.

Good. Always above average. Good service as well.
The coffee is always decent. The food is always fresh and simple. If you get the chance and it’s the season for it, they have a lemon-​grilled-​mango muesli and yoghurt that is phenomenal.
I even know some of the guys that work there and they’re great dudes.
A decent vibe as well.

Nice space, good coffee and friendly staff. My serrano, tomato and cottage cheese on toast was quite good.

Nice place cool environment. Coffee was really nice and served fast. Staff were friendly and very efficient. Other than that food was ordinary I got a piece of bread with avocado basil and cherry tomatoes. Meh
Also took 30 minutes for my food to come out.
Heard a lot of people talking about this place and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Coffee maybe other than that I’ll stick to the baron.

Went for coffee. Service is slow and impersonal. 3 long blacks took 9 minutes to arrive. There were only a handful of other people in the café at the time. Waiter didn’t have knowledge of menu items and was unable to answer questions.
If it wasn’t for the decent drop of coffee — st Ali of Melbourne, I’d score 1 Star.
I’ll give them one more chance but my hopes aren’t high.

*Review of Youeni — Castle Hill*
*Coffee:* Sensory Lab
*Passion:* ⁸⁄₁₀
*Crema:* ⁷⁄₁₀
I am finding that it is unfair for me to compare some cafes to others as one might do one thing in particular perfectly, while the others simply try do their best, which is all you should ever expect, even if they don’t match the same standard. And yet, compare them I must. Before I do however, let me stipulate a few details that likely impacted my experience.
Here on a Saturday morning it is less about a relaxed atmosphere, and more like the blur and noise of sitting on the corner of a busy street in a café packed full of people waiting for service. The staff, some more focused than others, seem a little haphazard in their approach, and yet, somehow when I walked up, I managed to grab a table straight away (I think more likely that I accidentally skipped the cue… my bad).
Looking up at the menu I understand why one of my friends on twitter suggested that these guys were awesome. With one single origin for espresso and two available for their V60 pour over, my expectations were high. So I threw in an order and let the wait begin…
As for my order, I went for their Colombian Dona Etelvina as a pour over, before seeing it on the menu for $ 6.50??? O_​o Rather than cancel the order I figured that I could pay for it once, having just been to Paramount Coffee Project and seen them school me on how pour over coffee should be done for $ 5/​cup.
But then 25min past… and from my seat I could see that the V60 had not been touched, nor water boiled… but as they were busy, I decided to give them a buffer. I ordered an espresso of their Colombian Santuario for «while I was waiting for my pour over…»
Another 8min past and finally someone came to start creating the pour over. Rather than harp on about the differences in technique between here and Paramount, let me just say that it could have been better. When I saw them put two cups in front of the V60 I wasn’t overly worried as it is common place to serve the pour overs these days with a container and a cup, allowing the drinker to control and experience the temperature of the coffee, but. it seems they were making two coffees at once.
This is fair enough, many cafes make jugs of coffee at the same time, but in this instance the ¾ full mug of coffee arrived and did not impress. It was flavourless and watery. Having been in this position before I let it cool and tried again, but it didn’t open up, it didn’t get better. It tasted like either the beans were a bit stale or perhaps the grind was too course. Either way, it was not a coffee worth the $ 6.50 I paid for it or for the 30+ minutes I waited for it to be made.
BUT… all was not lost. Sure the espresso that I ordered while I was waiting didn’t show up until after my pour over had arrived, but when it did, I was happy I stayed. Where the pour over was flavourless and watery, the espresso was like spiced chocolate syrup with a slight tart brown sugar finish. It was so good that rather than spoil the aftertaste I decided to leave the remaining half of my pour over.
So why does this café deserve (at least) a ⁴⁄₅? They were under the pump and sometimes shit happens. Sure the pour over was a huge and expensive disappointment, but with a fresh bag of coffee, a slight modification of the grind, and maybe a policy of only making one pour over per V60 at a time, these guys are certainly on the right track. Not only that, but offering so many single origin beans should be rewarded. Finally, the espresso when it arrived was awesome. You could see the care that went into it.

Great another coffee shop in Castle Hill with pretencious coffee baristas who can’t make a hot coffee.

Had a breakfast meeting here yesterday. Place looks very nices and clean. But that’s about it. I asked for a bacon and egg roll or sandwich. Waitress said they only server what’s on the menu and don’t do bacon & eggs. She said they can do scramble which was on the menu and add bacon. So we all ordered that. For coffee, my mate ordered a hazelnut latte. They don’t do that as well. So we just ordered latte.
I find it hard to understand that a café serves scamble eggs on toast with a side of bacon but don’t do bacon & eggs. What’s up with that. Isn’t that the same. You have eggs & Bacon to cook. Just don’t scamble the egg.
When the food arrived I asked for BBQ sauce. Waitress said they don’t have sauces. How can a Café not have BBQ sauce or Tomato sauce.
When I paid the bill. The scamble eggs with side bacon was $ 12 each. There was 3 of us. $ 12×3 = 36. They tried to charge me $ 76. They tried to explain that they were correct. Not sure how they calculate things.

Coffee’s good, food is the organicy slow style and very tasty stuff.
You can sit at the counter, but you trade off seeing the food being made with seeing the dirty plates being piled up in front of you. I like chatting to the chef, but seeing people pour dirty stuff down the sink is not great.
That said, sit anywhere else and you’re fine, the yoghurty lamb patties with salad I had were brilliant and I’m sad I missed out on the salted caramel hockey puck, err… cake.

Youeni! (pronounced: you-​en-​i, like ‘you & I’)
I heard tales of this place coming soon to the Hills a few months back and now that it is finally here I am well pleased. This place captures all the elements you want in a café & more.
The space: classy. clean. inviting. modern.
The menu: fresh. seasonal. tasty. balanced.
The staff: friendly. professional. knowledgable. lovely.
What I appreciate most is the passion that is carried through all these different elements including the love they have for traditional cooking with seasonal products. This is definitely something to note. If you have a favourite dish be sure to give them feedback so that it can appear on the menu again. Otherwise, you might be waiting a while for it to appear.
They have a selection of tasty baked goods which will go well for a quick breakfast snack or something to compliment their coffee. Try the brioche banana sandwich. so simple but so amazing. Baristas are well trained and the coffee is definitely a win. I believe they are one of the few cafes in NSW that use St Ali’s beans.
It’s a local favourite by far. Be sure to visit.