Locavore and ethically sourced food is the flagship of the Tasmanian food scene.
Lola Espresso is a further addition with both a clean-food and a paleo focus.
Tasmanian foodies have been demanding clean-food for some time, but ironically, paleo is a little newer.
Paleo has its zealots and its fair share of critics. If you park the dogma and distil the core concepts, paleo is eating unprocessed foods: grass-fed and free-range meat and poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts. Some people don’t do dairy but that’s more a matter of preference, but grains, legumes and refined sugars are all avoided and carbohydrates are minimised.
Most of those concepts make sense to This Girl. Eating fewer processed foods is good for everyone.
Lola Espresso is riding the Paleo wave but it’s not a religious order. You’ll find a welcoming, open café on Hobart’s waterfront. The ethical clean-food feature is symbolised by various shades of green in the interior design.
Typical Paleo ingredients are there in spades: sweet potato fritters instead of toast (low GI carbohydrate/ no grains), everything tastes like it’s cooked in coconut oil, and most of the sweets are raw. But there are also baked bikkies and toast on the side.
The Two Girls stopped in for breakfast.This Girl chose the sweet potato fritters, poached eggs, and avocado. The Other Girl is a fan of the omelet so she tried Lola’s. For some reason we decided we could also eat a piece of raw apricot and coconut cream slice while we waited. That was an overreach.
I had a soy latte which was A OK by Lola. In some Paleo cafes interstate you won’t see soy because it is resource intensive to produce. The non-dairy alternative is usually almond milk which will split when it’s heated – it hasn’t the fat content to cope.
We give Lola full points for taking on a new food ethos and giving it their all. The meals were getting up to $20 with our Rye toast side but they were generously portioned. We couldn’t finish our breakfasts. It was a noticeable wait to get fed even with four kitchen staff and of course there’s the after taste.
Lola Espresso is worth a visit and a return which I’m sure we will do, because they are making an important contribution to Hobart’s food scene.
