Cult cafe launches new waffle house with crazy flavour combos

A beloved Brisbane cafe’s waffle specials have become so popular the owners have launched a new sister eatery entirely dedicated to the batter beauties.

What do you do when your customers become completely obsessed with your waffle specials and won’t stop begging you to bring them back? You open a brand new cafe entirely dedicated to them, of course.

Well that’s at least what the owners of Brisbane’s hugely popular cafe The Jam Pantry in Greenslopes have done.

The outside of Waho Cafe, Stones Corner. Picture: David Kelly

Victor and Stephanie Chan and their team of creative chefs have been winning hearts and stomachs with an ever-changing array of batter beauties since taking over the cafe in 2020. But the venue’s signature has always been its rotating menu, with no two months of dishes ever the same. With this dedication to constant culinary change, it means plates that become immediate favourites – most commonly the waffles – are often never seen again, much to the distress of loyal patrons.

Wanting to appease diners’ demands but not wanting to stray from The Jam Pantry’s signature evolutionary style, Victor says a second venue became the obvious solution, serving up all the most-loved waffles from the past three years in one spot.

The dining room at Waho Cafe, Stones Corner. Picture: David Kelly

Waho Cafe is the result, slipping into the backstreets of Stones Corner, in Brisbane’s south, in a large white industrial building also housing a beauty business and a hairdresser.

There are just 30 seats – 18 inside among a Scandi-esque fit-out with pale timbers, white walls and curved, contemporary chairs, and the rest outside on a narrow deck overlooking the carpark. It’s not the most ambient, but it feels clean and modern and the warm welcome from the friendly, smiling staff is more than enough to make it enticing.

The big attraction here is, of course, the food.

The menu features just 10 waffles, plus a kids’ version and loaded waffle fries, with a combination of sweet and savoury, and those that sound like they could be both. Think a maple chicken sandwich waffle with bacon, fried egg and burger sauce; a chocolate number with salted caramel, honeycomb and ice cream; the sunshine featuring bulgogi pulled pork and scrambled eggs, and my personal favourite from The Jam Pantry, a cheese and spinach number with poached eggs, bacon and sour cream.

The red velvet waffle with chorizo, bacon and egg. Picture: David Kelly

All the waffles are gluten-free and we opt for the red velvet version ($25).

This isn’t the American sweet classic with cream cheese, however, this is a savoury incarnation – the waffle flavoured with salt, not sugar and soft to bite under a doona of thin, crispy fried chicken pieces, a fried egg rather than the poached advertised on the menu, a conservative drizzle of runny sour cream dressing and rounds of smoky chorizo.

My brunch date loves sauce, and would like at least double the dressing, and while a little more wouldn’t go astray, its absence allows the waffles to be the star.

Pumping the moisture content up to 100, though, is the creme brulee ($23).

Almost too pretty to eat, the delicate sweet waffles are stacked atop each other to form
a half moon, piped with lashings of tart, viscous lemon curd, with squirts of berry coulis seeping out from between icing powder-dusted fresh raspberries and blueberries and maple-candied cashews.

Waho’s creme brulee waffles. Picture: David Kelly

It’s so good my date almost inhales the whole thing before I can even have a bite.

Supreme coffee is on pour, delivering bitter brews to counteract any sweet waffles, plus there’s all your regular hot and cold drink options including a thick, creamy mango smoothie bringing a bit of summer loving to cold winter days.

A cafe hidden in a suburban backstreet serving just waffles might sound like a bit of a risk for the Chans, but with their reputation and a long list of devotees, Waho is sure not to stay hidden for long.

Waho Cafe

1/27 Stoneham St, Stones Corner

Open

7.30am-2pm daily

Verdict – Scores out of 5

Food 4

Service 3.5

Ambience 3

Value 4

Overall 3.5