22
Apr-2018

Wisteria Place, Leura

We rejoiced when this place opened because it meant we didn’t need to drive an extra 15 minutes up the mountain to Anonymous Café in Blackheath for a hit of Campos coffee.

Campos is reliably excellent because the coffee brand trains the baristas at all cafés using its beans to ensure they make consistently good coffee. But Wisteria’s coffee is additionally excellent because Czech-born owner and chief barista Alan is meticulous about his grind and pour. He cares so much about quality he’s been known to throw out kilos of beans if they’re even a day beyond their used-by date.

So, good coffee? Czech! (Ha ha…)

Coffee_Wisteria-Place

And we love the café, too.

Just off the main drag of Leura at the entrance to the Woolworths car park, Wisteria Place looks like a homely cottage from the outside and a cosy European log cabin inside. In the colder months the open fireplace crackles away, or there’s the wrap-around balcony for some fresh-air-eating when it’s warm. Plans are in place to put up screens and heaters outside too, which will make the outdoor area a cosier place to be in winter.

It’s an all-day breakfast menu here, featuring tasty standards plus a selection of sweet and savoury crepes. If the café’s super busy, though, sometimes the all-day brekkie will canned, which is nothing to despair about since there’s a decent range of choices for lunch too.

Omelette_Wisteria-Place

Highlights for me include the omelettes (vegetarian omelette above) – fat and fluffy and bursting with buttery fillings; the homemade pear and raspberry bread – a moist mini loaf served steaming on the inside and a little crunchy on top; and the chips, which come with toasties, wraps and burgers – a perfected ratio of crunch to potato.

Chips_Wisteria-Place

From all reports (my husband’s more the crepe fan than me) the crepes are delicious, and you can count on them being available all day.

The Leura crepe is a breakfast treat, topped with yoghurt, banana, strawberries, honey and walnuts; or there’s Mr E’s favourite – the Parisian crepe (below), which he likes with an extra fried egg. All are gluten-free, made with buckwheat flour.

Crepe_Wisteria-Place

Kids are well looked after with a handful of inexpensive and yummy choices, and there’s a high chair for little ones.

What really makes it for me at Wisteria is that it serves quality food at reasonable prices. You’ll find the cafés on Leura Mall generally bump up their prices because the constant flow of tourists means they can. The most expensive thing on Wisteria’s menu (including lunch) is the Big Breakfast, capped at $16.50.

While all the tourist buses pull up right out the front of Wisteria Place the passengers often walk straight past, eager to get to the boutiques on the main street. This means you can usually get a table at Wisteria Place when you want it, even on weekends; though the risk in writing this review is those hoards of people will begin to flow in… please, no!

Well, if it comes to that, so be it, but I shotgun the table near the open fire.

** NEWS FLASH**

Wisteria Place Nights is now open for dinner Thursday to Saturday with an eastern-European-inspired menu. The guys behind Newtown’s Cheeky Czech Beer Café are in the kitchen cooking up old-world dishes originating from Scandanavia, the Balkans and Czech Republic. Check it out!

DETAILS:

  • Address: 156 Megalong Street, Leura, NSW 2780
  • Opening hours: Tue–Sun 6am–4.30pm (breakfast served from 8am); also open for dinner Thu–Sat 5pm–9pm
  • Prices: Food from $6–$16.50
  • Cuisine: Café (dinner will be eastern European)
  • Licensed: Yes
  • Bookings: For dinner only
  • Views: No
  • Wheelchair access: Yes – park in the drive way
  • Cards: All except Amex

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