Cafe Groovy Dessert Bar

Last updated on March 15, 2016

Cafe Groovy, despite its name, isn’t decked out like an Austin Powers set. It is, instead, warmly lighted with white walls and black accents, and furnished with French cafe-style wood and wicker-backed chairs, and marble-patterned tabletops.

cafegroovyfront — The counter as you go past.

Along the same stretch of Logan Road in the Stones Corner village as Shady Palms and Five Burroughs, it has mainly al fresco seating, but all under cover. As the front of the cafe is essentially open to the street, there isn’t really much of an indoor/outdoor divide. The only issue with that is the exposure to cigarette smoke from pedestrians going by on the footpath. And it carries all the way from further up the row of shops.

As its name indicates, the main pitch has been dessert. They have non-dessert food options though, which have included burgers, pastas, and salads. On going by this time, it seems that they have trimmed their menu down a bit, so that there are fewer options across the range. As Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares repeatedly shows, it is generally better to do a few items well than many items incompetently.

We had a lemon pepper chicken burger and a beef burger for our mains.

The lemon pepper chicken burger was delicious. The chicken breast did taste nicely of lemon and black pepper, and was still tender. There was a generous serving of avocado, despite the current avocado crisis. There was also tomato relish, melty cheddar cheese, aoli, and rocket leaves. The brioche bun was toasted so that it was all warm, with just a slightly crispy skin.

cafegroovychickenburger — The chicken burger, nicely cooked and with generous serves of the other ingredients.

We were also pleased with the beef burger. The menu had said that the beef patty had chorizo mixed in, and there was certainly more flavour in it than most of the burgers from other places we’ve eaten at recently. It was savoury and juicy, and didn’t have coarse bits. It also comes with bacon, tomato relish, aoli, and melted mozzarella cheese. Again, the brioche bun was well-prepared.

cafegroovybeefburger — The beef burger, another delicious one with, as they would say on Masterchef, bags of flavour.

Certain expectations go with having dessert in your name. The dessert options were indeed promising. Though we were very tempted by the Mango Cloud (mango trifle, mango coconut mousse, merengue, almond cake, mixed berry compote, passionfruit sorbet, and coconut chips), the tasting plate for two was also hard to go past.

On the tasting plate was quite a selection. Raspberry and white chocolate brioche dumplings, with a crunchy pastry shell dusted with sugar. Freestyle Tout did excellent ones when they were around, and though these are a bit smaller, they’re pretty good with the chocolate sauce. Churros, also sugar dusted and that mix between being crunchy on the outside and then soft when you bite in, and also good with chocolate dipping sauce. Passionfruit cheesecake, which was not too dense, topped with passionfruit sauce without seeds in it, just a bit tart without being bracingly sour. Chocolate pudding, really like a dense chocolate cake, with drizzle of chocolate sauce on top. I was expecting a melted chocolate centre, as it felt like it had a bit of a wobble and give to it, giving the impression that it might not be solid all the way through. It was all cake/pudding though, so rich that we couldn’t actually finish it. And a mixed berry compote, just to offset the sweetness of the other components.