Harlan Pepper Food Co.

A local café pitched with personality.
Izzie Aldridge
Published on May 25, 2017

Overview

Scuttle a street back from New North Road and you'll run into Kingsland's newest sweet spot. She's big, she's bright, she's brimming with personality and she goes by the name: Harlan Pepper Food Co.

The CBD fringe welcomes the new café, a brunch spot with interiors to boot. It's home to a loft-style exposed brick wall, a coffee counter engulfed in Turkish mosaics and succulents seemingly free-falling from roof-ways-yonder. There are martian figurines and bobble-heads standing alongside vast coffee bean bags and a floor-to-ceiling herb garden meandering its way skyward.

Also spotted alongside the coffee machine and amongst the garden are 'sniff me' signs, encouraging full immersion in this bizarre sensory experience. It's hard not to feel like a guest peeping into someone's eclectic brain child with this one.

A traditional all-day brunch menu is pimped with oddball items such as the La Tuti Tuti. Picture a rosemary infused potato doused in lashings of chorizo, braised ham and garlic spiked spinach topped with a perfectly poached egg. Of course they've got your eggs bene covered, but why bother when there's a mountainous rosti stack with avocado, bacon and egg all cosy-ing up together with Harlan's zingy lime-infused hollandaise.

In need for some hearty sustenance? HPFC will have you sussed with the Kings Belly, piled high with succulent pork, cauliflower puree, tangy beetroot/ginger relish with crunchy kumara chips to accompany. If it's lamb you're feeling, then the Baa Baa Smoked Sheep will do just the trick. Thick cuts of tender meat tossed with balsamic vine-ripe tomatoes in a salad of beets, feta and sweet roasted walnuts.

For the sweet tooth connoisseurs there are the Harlan Hotcakes, drowned in sweet maple syrup, crumbles of peanut brittle…and to finish? Just a sky-scraper of cotton candy. We encourage indulging.

Almost everything on offer comes GF (including the stellar bagel lineup), with plates such as 'Chilli Non Carne' ticking the vegan box too.

A quirky interior a considerate menu and a sprawling deck positioned to lap up all the sun hours you can clock, Harlan Pepper Food Co. can only be described as a beautifully buzzy place, pitched for the people.

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