LaManna Supermarket Cafe

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10 English St. Essendon Fields, VIC 3041

My score: 4.5/5

I’m sitting in a supermarket cafe and there are strange words coming out of my mouth. “This place is great!” Who says that at a supermarket, normally the site of retail woe, wonky trolleys, whinging kids and plastic everything?

But uttering these words is appropriate at LaManna because the place is an absolute phenomenon, a 10,000-square-metre gourmet supermarket of unspeakable bounty. There’s fresh marron and Italian macaroni, free-range pork and post-haste focaccia, Nutella-stuffed cannoli and plump, shiny cherries, all arranged in such loving, celebratory fashion that you’re reminded that food and cooking can be a joy, not an unending task to wrangle.

One large corner of LaManna is given over to its pumping indoor-outdoor cafe. This thrumming eatery feeds workers at Essendon Airport and nearby businesses, fuels shoppers either side of their provisioning, and offers an unlikely venue for socialising, in a business park just off the freeway. It’s as buzzy as a beehive.

You’re in take-a-number-and-wait territory but service is efficient and the food is much better than the protocol may suggest.

Peruse the piadina as you queue to order: early, there’ll be one filled with scrambled eggs, bacon and rocket, later it could be a porchetta melt with jalapeno and salsa verde.

That herb-rich salsa is also dolloped over the pasta of the day, fusilli tumbled with braised lamb shoulder, napoli and green olives. It’s simple but careful, absurdly generous and, at $15, exceedingly well priced.

New chef Jason Shiong has brought more seasonality to the menu – the violet hotcakes have just been subbed out for a summery stonefruit version – and is also linking the cafe to store produce.

He showcases, for example, taleggio cheese in a sandwich or elderflower cordial in a pannacotta so it’s more likely to walk off the shelves.

He’s aware that the biggest seller is, and ever will be, the chicken and avocado focaccia but that doesn’t stop him from dotting the menu with more exciting fare like chia pudding with roasted rhubarb and a classy grain salad with perfectly cooked salmon.

A remarkable spirit of hospitality infuses the place and, as far as I can tell, each of the 400 people who work across the premises. You’ll hear the barista greeting people by name, which isn’t bad when you learn that they make up to 1600 coffees a day. You might even see owner Patrick LaManna on the cash register, or his father Vince pricing loaves of bread: this is a big business but it’s very much a family operation, built on the foundations laid by Pat LaManna, who opened his first fruit shop in West Preston in 1953.

A few tips for new players: children are welcome to pick up a free piece of fruit by the entrance, the toilets are way over yonder through aisle 15 and – this is the best – when the cafe queues are long, you can order everything on the menu at the piadina stand across the way.

I usually leave supermarkets feeling deflated and depleted. I leave LaManna feeling buoyant and full of fond feelings for humanity, not to mention with a boot bursting with fine produce. If this is shopping, write me a list and send me yonder.

See their website.

First published in Good Food, 19th December 2017.