It was a triangle concept of great food, amazing coffee and welcoming service that third generation Greek Australian Stephanie Manolas and her partner John Vroom had in mind when they decided to open their very own café in Kew’s Paddington Street.
With both of them rich with experience in hospitality – John as an award-winning barista and Stephanie with training in business management – they made a perfect match.
After some years of John mastering his skills behind the coffee machines of Proud Mary and Liar Liar, in 2011 he was named Victorian Coffee Siphon Champion and runner up in the Australian Coffee Siphon Championship.
It was in 2011 that the couple stumbled upon the Kew location that now accommodates their brainchild, café Ora.
And Ora symbolises exactly what you would expect when translated from Greek – time.
“We have a very subtle concept of time, the time it takes to produce the quality that we look for in our products. We roast our own coffee; we use some produce and herbs that we grow at the back of the café.
“I guess that our goal and what we wanted to do when we opened it – that we didn’t think was happening yet in Melbourne – was getting that triangle together, of service, coffee and food, and having them all at a really high standard. So not focusing more on one than the other, but having fantastic food and coffee and beautiful service. That’s our motto,” Stephanie tells Neos Kosmos.
Ora offers some of the most interesting café food in Melbourne’s evolving café and food scene, with its menu often described as “beautifully presented restaurant quality dishes”, with an inventive combination of ingredients extracting influences from Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
A testament to their amazing food is the recent award they picked up in the competitive The Age Good Cafe Guide 2014, being recognised as Melbourne’s Best Food Café.
The award, Stephanie says, came as a big surprise – but a pleasant one.
“We were overwhelmed. We work really hard and we do what we do every day, but we didn’t realise that the word was getting out there and that other people actually thought the same thing, so that was very exciting.”
Stephanie describes the adventurous menu at their small Kew café as modern Australian cuisine with many influences. It features dishes that cover all day dining, with breakfast items such as fried duck egg, tiffin egg, black pudding, breakfast radish and parsley salad, pancakes with hazelnuts, pear, blueberries and milk ice, and woodbridge smoked trout.
Their seasonal fare with truly local produce like herbs and tomatoes grown in their backyard veggie patch is accompanied with Ora’s own house-roasted coffee.
“The menu is kind of creative but simple and inventive. There are some really different dishes on there including our tiffin egg, and a prawn toast, which is so unique for a breakfast item. At the same time we still do your traditional eggs and bacon but really well made. Our bacon comes from the Melbourne Pantry, where they smoke the bacon we use for us.”
And if you wonder if the Greek influenced food will make it to the menu of the now award winning café Ora, the answer is probably – no.
The reason, as Stephanie says, is simple – nothing compares to yiayia’s food.
“The chef said once she wanted to make my yiayia’s spanakopita. But I told her you could never make it as good!” she says with a giggle.
With all the benches, tables and woodwork hand made by Stephanie’s father, Steve, Ora Café seats 26 people.
Having brought serious coffee and pedigree to the suburbs, for the 29-year-old couple, the adventures don’t end with Ora. In the weeks to come, they will launch their own roasting company, Maker Fine Coffee – their other brainchild.
“We roast all the coffee for our café, and we get it from all over the world. We are really focused on a good solid base coffee product, getting good quality beans from around the globe.
“In future, we would love to expand on what we are doing now, have another café that’s similar to Ora, and use that same triangle concept of food, coffee and service. That’s something we would love
to do when we have time and when we are up for the next challenge.
“And on the coffee scene – of course, learn more about it, and perfect our roasting technique.”
Ora Cafe, 156 Pakington Street, Kew, is open daily till 4.00 pm. For more information, contact Ora Café on (03) 9855 2002.