From a Joke and Coffee Pilgrimage to Home: How Steve Chan Landed in Melbourne (and Why He Loves It)

It didn’t take much to get Steve Chan to visit Melbourne – it started as a joke. Long before opening Sleepy’s in Carlton North, Chan was a university deferrer, starting out in Sydney’s coffee scene with a front-of-house gig at Cofi House in 2017. And he fell hard for the world of coffee.

“I used to be, like, a barista ,” he tells Broadsheet. “One of those ‘I love coffee’ guys.”

Drawn by Melbourne’s ever-changing cafe culture, he booked a solo trip for a weekend. “I didn’t know anyone. I’d never been on an interstate holiday, and I came as a joke for a weekend off,” he says. “I didn’t know Melbourne well … I was taking Ubers in between Fitzroy and Collingwood because I was scared of [getting lost between] these different new suburbs.”

But he was armed with a hit list of 15 or so cafes, and spent the weekend sipping double rounds and introducing himself. “I remember handing out a few resumés as a joke.”

It was very much vibes over plan. “I was like, ‘Oh these guys in Melbourne take it super seriously, there’s no way in hell I’ll get a job here.’”

Two weeks later, he was back – just a coffee guy with a 10-kilo backpack and a dream (as well as commitment to the bit).

A coffee (and water) convert

Fresh off the plane, Chan was “strictly coffee” while working his gig at Aunty Peg’s on Wellington Street in Collingwood. It was here that he realised how deep the rabbit hole goes: what started as a fascination with flavour became a full-blown obsession with the technical side of extraction.

A shot of espresso is about 90 per cent water, and fortunately Melbourne’s is among the best in the world. The city’s soft water is naturally low in minerals like calcium and magnesium, which gives baristas a cleaner base to work from.

“Hard water has more minerals, so it can extract more flavour. Sometimes too much,” Chan explains. “The purer the water, the more control you have over the variables.” Aunty Peg’s would use that blank slate to dial in flavour with precision, and Chan saw the difference first-hand.

“There was a time we got a lot of coffee sent from the Netherlands, but the flavour would always taste different here,” he says. “The Netherlands has quite hard water – around 150 or 160 ppm [parts per million] – while Melbourne’s water is really soft, about 30 ppm.”

Flipping over to food

After Aunty Peg’s, Chan quickly found a home in Melbourne’s burgeoning pop-up dining scene. Alongside two mates, Kurtis Tupangaia and Sheridan Williams, he formed pop-up collective The New Standard. Their first event was scrappy – just a bench, a camping stove and a kettle in Edinburgh Gardens. “We were just trying shit,” he laughs. “We just wanted to make people filtered coffee.” It helped that coffee-ready soft water flowed straight from the park’s taps.

“Just trying shit” sparked something. Chan’s love for hospitality eventually evolved beyond coffee. So he watched Youtube videos, got behind the pans and discovered a new way to connect with people – through food.

“I’m learning, still, that hospitality is a love of celebration and flavours and sharing cool shit with cool people.”

From pop-up to permanent

Fast-forward a few years and Chan opened Sleepy’s on Nicholson Street in 2021. The cafe-slash-wine-bar’s offering explores his Aussie identity and mixed Chinese heritage. By day, it’s all about coffee, toasties and a customisable congee. By night, it becomes a dimly lit wine bar where the self-taught chef cooks up next-gen Chinese-Australian dishes.

He routinely uses the space for pop-ups with friends – most recently a night of Sri Lankan snacks with sommelier Zac Walton and Brix Fine Wines. “I made so many friends, and that’s the reason why I moved to Melbourne,” he says.

“It’s so hospitable and the people really appreciate the smaller things. And there’s the fact that it’s so easy to just go around and eating and drinking. Everyone’s doing such creative things – the individuality is amazing.

A Merri home in Melbourne

It’s not just the food scene and the people who keep Chan around, though. For someone whose work is all about conversation and connection, the city’s rivers, creeks and green spaces offer an important kind of grounding.

“Outside of work, I love being near the water,” he says. “I live near Merri Creek, and I’ll just chill around it for ages. Water’s so calming for me – it resets everything.”

He’s not just a fan of Melbourne’s green open spaces, but also the work that keeps them lush. “I’m really grateful for how the lush nature is so intertwined with the city – a little bit more than back in Sydney,” he says. “Whoever’s doing the water conservation planning for the public spaces, good on you.”

In a city that moves fast, it’s the steady presence of good water, good green spaces and good people that keeps him feeling at home. “I love Melbourne. It’s home, definitely, for now and for the foreseeable future.”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Greater Western Water , Melbourne Water , South East Water and Yarra Valley Water.