Tayrona Cafe

TAYRONA CAFE HAS CHANGED NAMES AND HANDS AND IS NOW LATIN MANNA. STAND BY FOR A NEW REVIEW.

Tayrona Café is an authentic little Latin American eatery and patisserie found tucked away in a West End shopping square.

Visiting Tayrona Cafe (which is named after a beautiful Colombian nature park near the north Caribbean sea) is like stumbling across a tiny piece of Colombia that has been beamed up onto Russell Street, where it is patronized by Brisbane’s Latin American community who drop in for their fix of hearty traditional dishes for breakfast and lunch, as well as hard-to-find bar drinks, pastries and snacks.

For breakfast, alongside a handful of standard Oz offerings like The Big Breakfast, Scrambled Eggs, Omelette and Eggs Benny, diners can tuck into plates of Colombian staples such as Caldo di Costella (rich beef ribs with potato and mixed veges, topped with coriander leaves), Chorizo Breakfast (Spanish chorizo, spicy black pudding, feta cheese and arepa – traditional flat cornbread) or the Tayrona Deal (scrambled eggs with tomato, onion and arepa and feta cheese on cheese bread with a small Colombian coffee, tea or hot chocolate.

Come lunchtime diners can tuck into Chicken or Steak Salad, Gourmet Sandwiches or Arepas (avocado, chicken, veggie or steak) or hearty rustic dishes including Tamal (rice cooked with chicken, pork belly, boiled eggs, carrot, peas and condiments, wrapped in plantain leaves), Ajiaco (chicken soup with 3 types of potato, corn and guasca herbs, served with rice, avo, capers and condensed milk) or Carne Desmechada (shredded flank steak with tomato, onion, rice, salad, borlotti beans and fried green plantain).

Meantime light meals available all day include sandwiches, croissants, banana bread and avo on toast along with traditional snacks like Empanadas, Patacones (fried green/sweet plantains with dip of tomato and onion) or Almojabana (gluten free cheese bread made from cassava starch with feta cheese).

And for dessert there’s Latin American favs including delicious Caramel Tartas, Torta 3 Leches (vanilla sponge cake soaked in heavy milk sauce), Milhojas (layered pastry with custard and caramel top) and Pastel Gloria (crunchy puff pastry filled with guava jam).

Tayrona Café is fully licenced so that customers can enjoy beer, wine or spirits including Corona, Chilean Shiraz, tequila, Cuba Libre (Cuban rum with ice, lime and coke) or Aguardiente (a Colombian drink of anise and suger cane served as a shot). There’s also a range of juices, Colombian soft drinks, Panela frappe (frozen soft drink of sugar cane and lime), tea or single origin Colombian coffee.

Nice to know – Tayrona Café also has a small range of providore items for sale such as biscuits and plantain chips.

Need to know - You'll find this Colombian gem tucked away in the Post Office square on Russell Street, with free of street parking out front.