Leroy Espresso

the verdict

Leroy Espresso is hard to miss. You'll spot the slick frontage on the corner of Barkly and Acland St.

Inside, the interior is impeccably funky (we're coining that one): exposed brick walls, burnt orange booths and a menagerie of sculptures and paintings stuck to every wall. The final product is kind of like the way models wear plastic shoes and bicycle shorts—it should probably look terrible, but somehow the Leroy guys pull it off. We don’t know how they do it, but they do—and have been for the last 15 years.

In terms of menu, Leroy is all about locally-sourced and wholesome foods, which is why you’ll see the words ‘house-made’ popping up all over the place. To name a few, you can have house-made granola, banana bread, cornbread, hollandaise, hash browns (reeeaaally good), cold-pressed juices, tomato relish, activated almond milk and a bunch of sweet vegan and gluten-free goodies.  

The caters to every niggly diet requirement too. Vegan? Keto? Gluten-free? Paleo? They’ve got ya backs, no sweat. Our pick for brekky is the vegan coconut flour and banana waffles, topped with berry compote and house made vanilla ice cream, all refined sugar-free. For something savoury, check out their chilli calamari linguini, tossed with garlic, cherry tomatoes and served with a squeeze of lemon.

Where Leroy really pulls out all the stops is their coffee. The beans come from Sensory Lab, and the variety they offer is insane: coconut milk, almond milk, soy milk, cold drip, batch brew, cold brew, turmeric latte and the Instagram fave: bulletproof coffee. It’s coffee with butter, but it’s good for you? We're not sure we really get it, but we're so here for it.

Oh, and make sure you try their LSD—that stands for Latte of Soy Dandelion. Dandelion, yep, you did read that right. It’s caffeine free, so a good one to hit up when it’s 4pm and you know you shouldn’t have another coffee...but you’re feening for one.  

Leroy also have a nifty take away window where they serve up coffee and cakes (if you come around 7am, the muffins are still warm from the oven) so you can grab-and-go your bean water.

But with food like this, we’d highly recommend going inside and making a morning out of it.

Image credit: Jess Prince