Ponsonby Road Cafe — Restaurant in Los Angeles

NEW ZEALAND 🇳🇿 Excerpt from Eat the World Los Angeles: The pandemic has certainly ruined many lives across many industries, with restaurants continuously seeing more and more casualties. But amongst this carnage, there have been quite a few brave souls that have continued their plans to open new businesses. In Beverly Grove, Ponsonby Road Cafe announced their opening to the world at the beginning of August, just when outdoor dining only rules were starting to feel normal and ok.

Trips to Auckland, New Zealand invariably end up at least once on the namesake thoroughfare, home to a busy dining, drinking, and shopping district. This name will invariably pull in customers from New Zealand that have relocated here to Los Angeles, and first impressions look good from expats who are using many exclamation points and quite a high ratio of capitalization in their online reviews.

Since it is currently impossible to eat either inside or outside of the cafe, plan to pick up and warm the pies later at home. The staff will give you clear instructions for getting them perfect in the oven, which will include 30 minutes of prep to get the center hot. The steak and mushroom meatpie ($9) is especially fatty and luxurious, as presumably the other steak options are as well. Biting into it is one of those delicious moments where you are forced to look over at your eating companion (or possible a pet) and nod together in approval...

Went for a coffee and a latte. Nothing wrong with either. Got some food as well. I enjoyed the New Zealand pie. But holy cow, the person behind the counter had some kind of problem. She was actively insulting. I was, and I am not exaggerating, nothing but amicable. This isn't one of those stories where the customer was awful and doesn't understand what went wrong. We ordered the coffees and food, and then it was, literally: "...maybe I'll try a watermelon refresher too." "Sure. Oh, wait, it looks like we're out of those." "No problem, what else is good?" "Do you wanna try the hibiscus red drink?" "Nah... how about the cucumber lemonade?" "Ok. Oh, we're out of that too. Do you want to try the hibiscus drink?" "Aw man, 2 for 2. I think we'll just get what we got then." "Uh, ok, why do you have to be so rude?" And then she walked into the kitchen, loudly said she "couldn't deal", and a different woman came out to finish the transaction. ... That's the conversation, word for word. Seriously. Thankfully, the second person seemed to be, you know, sane. She gave me a sort of "she's always like this" kind of look. Anyway, I don't care if their lattes and pies were the best in the world. I'm not going through such a hostile war zone of a purchasing experience for my breakfast and coffee. Had there only been the one employee I interacted with, this would be a...

Rarely would my husband enjoy driving over 3 miles for a coffee but he'd travel near and far for the handcrafted coffees by the owners here. There's plenty of free parking in the back of the cafe or meter parking in the front. When we saw their photos on Instagram, we knew we had to come for the ambiance and great vibes. Goodness, the cafe is gorgeous and I secretly wished they sell the cute, lovely plants that live at this cafe. The owners are also so sweet. The space is dog-friendly and they even have treats and a water bowl ready for your fur family. How thoughtful is that!

A cold brew or Americano is what we normally have on a work day for productivity. On a weekend here, my go-to drink is the honey vanilla latte with caramel. My husband always comments how the coffee here is so awesomely strong. Their paninis are also delicious - absolutely love their Chicken Pesto and Italian Mozarrella. Looking forward to try their Honey Lavender Latte next time after reading about it from a...