North Melbourne Le Bajo cafe review:
Crispy fried chicken and whipped cream and fruit are among the delicious things between fluffy white sliced bread at this heartwarmingly wonderful North Melbourne cafe.
Food
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A warehouse cafe named after an Indonesian fishing village decorated in Aussie op-shop memorabilia specialising in cult Japanese milk bread served in a one-time tram depot down a nondescript inner-city street — it couldn’t get more Melbourne even if you somehow got the letters MCG in the mix.
But rather than some cynically hip amalgam of tropes, Le Bajo is instead one of the most heartwarmingly wonderful and heart-beatingly exciting cafes I’ve visited in an age, the type of venue that you can’t wait to share with out-of-towners.
There’s method in this somewhat mad collection of influences.
Jason Gunawan is behind one of Bali’s original and most famous beach clubs — Potato Head —and was to build another club and hotel complex at Labuan Bajo, a fishing town on the Indonesian Island of Flores, when Covid put paid to those plans (hence the name).
Stuck in Melbourne, he instead transformed half of his warehouse garage — that still houses a collection of cars — into a quiet leafy oasis, bringing in Kantaro Okada of Japanese cafe 279 around the corner to create the menu that has the Japanese milk bread shokupan as the shining star of the show.
On one hand, shokupan is simply soft white bread. But on the other, it’s the impossibly airy and ethereally fleeting cloudlike antidote to sourdough’s heft and one-bite is all it took me to fall for its lunch-box nostalgic charms, transporting me to a time when empty calories were burned off on asphalt and crusts made your hair go curly.
To start the day here, doorstop-thick slices are lightly toasted and can come as simply topped as with a knob of butter ($7.50) and some jam ($9), through to more exotic flavours including spicy cod roe and seaweed ($12.50) and ogura, or red bean ($14.50).
For me, the best way to appreciate shokupan’s delicate fluffiness is in a classic three-point sandwich, whether filled with mayo’d tuna ($11), or a delightfully refined tamago — egg — mixture that’s creamy and seasoned on pointe ($13).
Come lunch and every second diner is plumping for the katsu sando ($18.50), a hefty, substantial sandwich that’s very generous with very crunchy-crumbed chicken, with shredded cabbage adding a touch of freshness to the spicy-sweet katsu sauce you’ll lick clean off your fingers.
On the side, you can add a Japanese potato salad that’s more like pre-fried bubble-and-squeak, dotted as it is with corn, peas and nubbins of carrot ($12), or a bowl of “dirty fries” that come tossed in teriyaki or an umami-packed miso mayo.
From little crunchy bits of potato to large fat fingers fried to a crisp, it’s mission impossible for me to stop picking at their salty-miso-moreishness and they almost upstage the bread as the kitchen’s must-order dish ($10.50).
Sparkling (or still) water is offered gratis, while the house-roasted coffee is excellent and makes for the perfect accompaniment to an afternoon sweet treat.
There’s shokupan sandos filled with fruit and cream ($7), or toast topped with fruit, honey and ice cream ($16.50), while pretty-as-a-picture layered short cake comes in strawberry or apple and Earl Grey versions ($9).
You can slather yuzu-flavoured scones with pear jam and cream ($4.50), or take a Hennessy drizzled madeleine ($3) with your espresso, or go back to the future with a coffee, cola or strawberry spider ($7.50).
Old-school milkshakes come in new-wave flavours including banana chai and pear milk tea ($9).
Bike, kid and dog-friendly out front, there’s large communal tables and lime-green stools to perch on by the bar, the walk-in only space steadily busy on a rainy Tuesday, filled to bursting come weekends when many dishes sell out early.
Super cool, super delicious, super friendly and filled with shukopan style and sustenance, Le Bajo is completely Melbourne and completely unique.
As quirky as it’s accomplished, it’s yet another jewel in our crown that helps cement our status as the cafe capital of the country.
LE BAJO
8-14 Howard St, North Melbourne
Open: Tues-Sun 7.30am-4pm
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