Paleo Cafe

Eaten here three mornings in a row when visiting Adelaide. The food is fantastic every time and comes out quickly. Drink Service could be a bit warmer and quicker.
The hot pot breakfast special was my favourite, but I did enjoy the hot cakes, salmon and smashed avocado on toast too. Im now addicted to Tumeric lattes!

Admittedly my attendance at the Paleo Café was a few months ago, however my experience was such that I am not inclined to attend again.
I came here for brunch with my parents, and while exceptionally sceptical of the Paleo trend, as someone who is wheat and dairy intolerant (yay FODMAPS), paleo meals, blogs, and restaurants are generally my go-​to for appropriate food.
We showed up and I had the sweet potato rosti with egg and a short black. The rosti was not hot, kind of overcooked and sticky, and appeared to be unspiced. At all. I was also amazed at how little was on the plate. The coffee really sealed the deal for me. My short black, served in a short black cup, had less than a spoonful of coffee in it. For a trend that loves coffee, they sure didn’t match that love with action.

So this is what cavemen ate? I wonder whether they used Nespresso machines for their coffee fix. Or whether they choose almond or rice milk.
Obviously this place is leveraging the nutritional trend of 2014. Which isn’t such a bad thing as the food is fresh and wholesome, if not entirely organic or anthropologically accurate. And it tastes good. The coffee too — worth drinking.

Trust me to not recognise what style of café it is before ordering, thinking paleo was a trendy clean eating style of food I came here with the boyfriend. Very different menu, I was super stoked on the salad selections and my partner got an amazing main of pulled pork and pumpkin.
Being an idiot though I asked for sweetner and almost asked for soy as well, sitting down I read through what a paleo diet consisted of and was a little mortified at myself haha oh well, nice and spacious, great shops around but probably not my cup of bullet tea hahaha My tastes are way too ignorant for here but definetly a haven for the paleo inclined!

Sigh. Paleo or not paleo, there are some things a seasoned breakfaster just doesn’t want to compromise on, right? I was rather underwhelmed by my morning visit to the Paleo Café for a few reasons, but mostly because my meal just had 0 taste.
I came for the sweet, sweet bacon and what I got could best be described as oily, tasteless fat. No crispness, not even a slight hint of salty. Disappointing.
The spinach that went with my B&Es resembled something thawed from a packet. I wouldn’t even mind the slight sogginess if I had something to soak it (and my poached eggy yolks) up with, but alas, the sweet potato rosti was too moist to do the job and the one piece of paleo toast on my plate (possibly the best bit about the dish) was too small to cover all that moisture! It was like using a washing up sponge to mop up an ice bucket challenge attempt.
My chai latte also pretty flavourless, even with almond milk which I was hoping would bring out some of the spicy, nuttiness that I love about a good chai, and my dining partner’s skim latte was tepid at best by the time it got to us.
Maybe I’m missing the point of the appeal of the Paleo Café, but when there are so many fabulous options in the surrounding neighbourhood, I think the game needs to be stepped up here!

This is the review I have been building in my mind over many visits to the Paleo Café since they opened here in Adelaide this year.
I have coeliac disease. Everything is gluten free at this café. This is a good start for me because it’s nice to feel safe when eating out.
When they first opened I held off, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to try an all GF café. What if it was terrible? What if it was awesome? I honestly felt a little nervous.
My mother had visited by this point and really enjoyed her lunch (this was around the time they were receiving a lot of negative reviews on urban spoon), another lady at work loved it, lots of positive messages from friends and family. So I embraced my urge to visit.
I’ve been back more times that I can count. So this will be a long review because it encompasses quite a few of my experiences with the café.
1) The Cold Drinks Fridge
Coconut Water, Kombucha, Spring Water, and Noni Fruit Juices are all on offer. I love the Coco Juice brand with green tea and natural peach flavour they have on often (I’m still working up the bravery to try Kombucha) but I wish the juices were little more veggie and not so fruit orientated (more on that later). You can also buy coconut yoghurt and ice-​cream (which is so yum!).
2) Fridge cont.
In the serve yourself fridge, next to the drinks, there are also some ready made meals you can take home to enjoy paleo dishes wherever you may be. I don’t agree with ever putting soup in a plastic box (one of the things that wasn’t favourable for me once) but it’s also been super helpful in between classes to be able to heat up some nutritious and GF meals.
3) Breakfast
I’m not going to lie… I like lunch more than I like breakfast at the Paleo Café and that is a rare thing for me. The paleo bread is nice but the eggs tend to work better with the sweet potato rosti. However they have introduced some new items recently so maybe I will like those more
4) Lunch
This is where they excel. The lamb burger is wonderful (though not a burger in the traditional sense), a cob salad is a yummy options, and the weekly specials are great. Once I popped in for sweet potato noodles with ragout, another week another lunch special. There’s a different curry, soup, omelette, and ‘lunch’ option every week and they’re a little cheaper than some of the other items and generally delicious. I think the curry with paleo cauliflower rice is a great option (YUM)
5) Almond Milk Chai Latte Experience (unfortunately not positive)
I like almond milk, I like almond milk in coffee, I like chai lattes. I thought it was a good idea to order an almond milk chai latte on a cold Thursday evening. Unfortunately, not so. A bland, unenjoyable chai was a high part of the one star reduction. It’s a shame because the rest of the drinks menu is great… this not so… I’m sorry paleo café but you need to lift the chai game :)
(See, I did a smiley face… I don’t like to give negative feedback)
6) SOME POSITIVITY
The rest of the drinks menu is great.
Green Juice: With hints of lemon and mango alongside the kale (I honestly like it, I promise!!) it’s super yummy and you still get little pieces of veggies so not all fibre is lost and wasted (the old ethical dilemma of juicing). This also makes up for the lack of veggie focused pre-​packaged juices
Salted Caramel Smoothie: Just order it. It’s good
Signature Iced Coffee: with coconut ice-​cream, coconut whipped cream and the coffee flavour it’s heavenly. Also, cacao nibs on top!
Coffee in general not bad, I quite like the ½ almond, ½ coconut option available as a milk choice. Not the best latte you’ll ever have but also not the worst.
As you can see I’ve been quite a few times :) I like the café overall, it’s never going to be the best culinary experience but it’s not the worst either. Staff are generally very friendly and you can pick up loving earth products/​coconut oil/​protein powder/​sweet potato noodles etc. in store.

Short: Good food, reasonably priced. Friendly service.
Too sterile on the franchise feel, unnecessarily heavy on branding.
Food here was fresh, well presented. Serving size fairly good. Had a bacon and eggs breakfast last weekend when I popped in; two eggs, three rashes of bacon, round sweet potato cake about 6 cm across.
At around 9am on a Sunday there was only one other table taken; the place was full as we left — staff confirmed most weekend mornings the same. Get in early if you want to try this out.
I can’t complain about the food but I have to highlight the shelves of marked up face washes, coconut oil, and Paleo Café cookbooks bookmarking the café at either end. Yeah, it’s a franchise and I knew it on entering but scaling back the side/​up/​plus sells in every direction would be a nice step.
They sell Bulletproof coffee — an untraceable, highly overpriced, stale, pre-​bagged coffee. Any outstanding newly opened café I’ve been to recently moved past this 3 – 4 years ago. I’d also expect a café promoting a Paleo lifestyle to disclose where and how they source at least some of their raw ingredients. I went to their website in the hope that they’d have this info somewhere, clicked ‘Products’ and was greeted with a page listing a branded cookbook and hoodie for sale…
Worth a try. See short comments to start.

Tried this place a few weeks ago for breakfast and was pleasantly surprised.
I had the banana pancakes which came with either lemon curd of berries and coconut cream. I chose the berries.
They tasted really good and probably would have been amazing if they were not a bit too overcooked.
Great venue, relaxed feel and the staff were exceptionally friendly.
Cant wait to come back and try their fresh juices and smoothies.

I’m not a ‘paleo’ eater however I do try to eat healthy & have been experimenting with cutting a few things out of my diet so I was excited to see via Facebook that the Paleo Café was coming to Hyde Park, Adelaide!
We decided to wait a few weeks after their opening to go along, as I had seen on their Facebook page that they had been quite busy & since I was planning on going during a lunch break I wanted to be sure I could get there, get served, eat & get back to work within an hour.
When we arrived the café was PACKED! We did consider leaving & trying again another day but saw a free table so grabbed it quickly. We had to ask the people at the table next to us if we could borrow their menu as the café was so busy there was none left at the counter! My friend went up to order while I held the table.
I ordered the lamb burger & she ordered one of the salads — we needn’t had worried as we had our meals within 10 minutes & they were DELICIOUS. You wouldn’t even know they were ‘healthy’. In fact the whole menu read like a normal café menu but it is great to know that everything is good for you.
There are shelves on either side of the café stocking books on the paleo diet (or caveman diet as some might know it), health products such as coconut oil, protein bars and even skincare.
On the way out I grabbed a jar of coconut oil & also a cacao & avocado mousse to takeaway. I lasted about 5 minutes at my desk before I got stuck into it, it was AMAZING.
When I was paying for the mousse & coconut oil, I could see straight through to the kitchen area which looked so neat & clean, especially for the middle of lunch rush.
I didn’t get a smoothie today but the juice/​smoothie menu looked equally amazing, so I’ll have to head back for breakfast soon.
Yes, sometimes the wait might be long, but I think it’s well worth it. I’ll be back!

We ordered the poached eggs with smoked salmon and avocado, the caveman big breakfast, fresh juice and coffee. After hearing a few negatives about their opening week, there were absolutely no complaints from us with either the food or the service. The meals were fresh and well presented, the fresh juices were ice cold and a really generous size. I think new businesses need to be given a little wiggle room for error in their first week. Let’s hope this place continues to improve as the concept and location are great. Definitely worth a try.

I was excited when I heard that an Adelaide franchise of the Paleo Café had opened, and I went there for lunch on Sunday with four friends.
It was the first week of opening and there were positives, including a nice fit-​out of the old Kibbi’s café, and a great-​sounding menu. A few teething problems would have been understandable and shrugged off. But we left feeling that the service was pretty shabby indeed.
Two in our group ordered the chicken and vegetable stack with crispy bacon. The bacon was pink and flabby, and the chicken was rubbery on the outside and looked very pale and we could have sworn it was microwaved.
But the real problem was that the chicken was RAW in the middle! Pretty much a cooking FAIL and a health hazard too. I actually ate at least one mouthful of my raw chicken because it wasn’t looking all that closely to begin with, and it was in amongst a mouthful of zucchini and other veggies.
Waitress No. 1 asked how we liked our meal and two of us said our chicken was partly raw. We showed her the raw chicken. She asked the others and they said their meals were fine, and so she said that was good to hear, and left it at that! Three out of five and all that.
Waitress No. 2 later asked the same thing and we again mentioned, ever so politely, that we’d been served uncooked chicken, and she too said it was a shame. No action!
The five of us were enjoying chatting and stayed on a while longer. The waitresses looked pretty young. Maybe they were inexperienced. Didn’t they know about salmonella. Or social media… So we thought we’d have a quiet word with the owner.
Bec came over, and it turns out she was Waitress No. 1. She said she’d talk to the chef and the other waitress. She also asked if there was anything she could do. But it sort of ruins the experience further if a customer has to figure out the compensation or solution so not one of us suggested anything. We’d already paid when we’d ordered so we got no refunds.
But here’s a hint Bec — next time, offer a refund straightaway. Don’t put the onus on the customer. Offer an apology and organise another meal. Or a round of drinks perhaps. Coffees. Something.
PostScript– yesterday I had a small tummy upset and a bit of diarrhea. Today I woke up with horrible explosive diarrhea and feeling really crook. Can I remove that 1 star?