Located just moments from Essendon Airport, Lamanna Supermarket has become a favourite amongst locals and those not so local, with hundreds traveling from afar to get their hands on some of Melbourne’s freshest produce, baked goods, deli meats and so on. This family-owned business has come a long way from its humble beginnings 30 years ago as a small fruit shop in West Preston. Now boasting a huge space with dedicated areas to every type of food imaginable, Lamanna is truly a shopping experience unlike any other. Connected to the marketplace is a seemingly small café with the constant buzz of customers and foodies alike. It was here we found ourselves on a cold Melbourne morning, tummies grumbling as we took in our surroundings.
After a quick peruse through the aisles (not an easy feat!), we were ready to feast…and feast we did! After meeting the head chef and placing our order, we made our way to the (thankfully) well-heated outdoor area. The unique thing about Lamanna Café is how it has such a casual atmosphere (ordering at the counter, helping yourself to your own cutlery, etc.) whilst maintaining so much charm, but more on that later.
To start off, we ordered the Strawberry Smoothie Bowl, made with strawberry, coconut milk, banana, berries and buckwheat crumble. The bowl was visually stunning, vibrant in colour and appeal, and we couldn’t wait to dig in. The crumble had the perfect level of crunch and went well with the softness of the fresh berries. The smoothie itself was light and creamy, however it was lacking that sweet something to make the flavour really pop. We are massive sweet tooths, after all…which brings us to our next dish…
Lamanna’s famous Violet Hotcakes with blueberries, violet vanilla cream, choc honeycomb, chocolate crackle and crumble have got to be some of the fluffiest and most scrumptious hotcakes we’ve ever had in our lives. Soft and sweet, the mixture of berries, cream and the various chocolatey flavours on the plate took us on the tasteful journey we never knew we needed. The melt-in-your-mouth chocolate crackle brought us back to our childhood and added an unexpected but extremely welcome decadence to the dish. The honeycomb had the perfect crunch, and overall, we couldn’t fault it!
After such sugary indulgence, it was time to cleanse our palates with something a little healthier! What we didn’t expect was the visual feast that emerged from the kitchen.
The Beetroot and Fetta smash with poached eggs, avocado, almonds and broccolini on sourdough toast was just the fix we needed! Aesthetically stunning, the plate featured a splatter of beetroot which seemed almost too perfectly placed to be real (it most definitely was), and we were well and truly impressed! What about the ACTUAL dish, though? Accompanied by some fresh lemon, the smash, mixed with the perfectly poached eggs, fresh broccolini and avocado, was absolutely delicious! Creamy and not overpowering, the dish was light and felt nutritious enough to balance out all the sweetness we’d just consumed.
Our final dish of the day was the LM Green Breakfast with poached eggs, raw and cooked greens, avocado, pumpkin hummus, spiced seeds and vegetable chips…and it was absolutely incredible! It never ceases to amaze us what can be done with a few seemingly simple ingredients to make a dish so unique and full of flavour. A special mention needs to go out to the pumpkin hummus which was sooo creamy and delicious, and worked so well with everything else on the plate. The vegetable chips were the cherry on top of a perfectly balanced and nutritious dish, and we couldn’t get enough of them!
After more than 30 years in the business, the Lamanna family continues to push the boundaries of the traditional shopping experience by combining everything you could possibly want in a supermarket and adding fresh, delicious and extremely affordable meals to tide you over between aisles. The hustle and bustle of the marketplace makes for a great and upbeat atmosphere, and the service was excellent, with each of the many (many) workers maintaining a bright and bubbly exterior whilst tending to the hundreds of customers surrounding them.
The food was absolutely delicious and it was obvious that, despite the level of demand, each dish was delicately and carefully presented to entice the tastebuds even before the first bite.
Lamanna’s mission statement, ‘For the love of Food’ is a testament to the passion that has clearly been put into delivering top quality, fresh food to the community.
We can’t wait to come back!
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