There's a new paleo cafe coming to Braddon in January. It's tentatively going to be called Elemental and will open in the new Ori apartment and retail building on Lonsdale Street.
The owners are Alexis Moran, formerly of Autolyse, and paleo chef Daniel Barrett, who posts recipes and photos online under the moniker Aussie Paleo Chef.
Barrett says they are still finalising details (hence the probable name Elemental) but tells us the cafe will go into the Ori building on the ground floor and will have a lot of street frontage.
Barrett says he will be serving up many of the same dishes that he features online. "I’m going to be doing exactly what I’m doing on my Facebook page, integral food that’s a little out of the square, so pork belly burgers, paleo lasagnes, parmigiana done in coconut rather than breadcrumbs," he says.
Barrett says he's a Canberra boy who moved to the Hunter Valley and then up to Brisbane working as a chef. He returned to the capital in 2001 with his three kids and a few years ago starting posting recipes and photos on Facebook for friends. The recipes proved popular and his Aussie Paleo Chef page currently boasts thousands of followers. Now he's "jumping in" and taking the opportunity to open his own place.
"As my way of bringing paleo to Canberra, once a month we'll be doing a five-course paleo dinner and once a month we'll do paleo cooking classes." Barrett says the cafe will open for breakfast and lunch and the menu will be kept simple – four or five items for breakfast, four or five for lunch. The other notable cafe opening in Ori will be ice-cream maker John Marshall's Frugii dessert bar, which is set to open within weeks.