There’s more to love at the new Mortadeli, including carbonara-inspired breakfast wraps, Roman pizza slices and new snacks for afternoon drinks. Plus, a new cafe nearby has an all-Australian menu led by jaffles.
Torquay’s smash-hit sandwich bar Mortadeli has carved out a name for itself as a destination for carb lovers since opening in 2021. Not only were its meatball sandwiches and deli goods a lure, but an added pasta bar located just steps away opened up more ways to enjoy the Euro-tinged good life.
But running a three-in-one business and keeping both cafe and restaurant hours took its toll on owner Jake Cassar.
Mortadeli 3.0, opening Tuesday, is a leaner machine, taking the best parts of the business and rolling them into a single venue open until early evening.
“We want it to be like the bars you see in Italy,” says Cassar. “Come in the morning to have your espresso and a pastry, and come back at lunchtime for a sandwich or a bowl of pasta.”
The space that was the deli and pasta bar is being reconfigured, with the deli being scaled back (no more meat sliced to order, sadly). The sandwich bar is being moved from the smaller shop across the piazza into this space. One roof, one menu, one kitchen, with current chef Louella Lacaden remaining.
The current roster of sandwiches will be available, kicking off with American-style breakfast buns and hearty baked bean melts before lunch sangers, including the signature Maltese hobz-biz-zejt, roll out.
The new daytime menu is broader, with soups, salads, house-made pasta, one-off sangers and sweets rotating month to month. For opening, there’s pumpkin, chickpea and pasta soup, a grain salad with pomegranate and yoghurt, rigatoni bolognese, and spaghetti cacio e pepe. Roman-style pizza by the slice is also planned.
New breakfast items include piadina – the flatbread from Emilia-Romagna – filled with scrambled eggs, guanciale, pepper, parmesan and rocket; it’s a riff on carbonara.
Ham and bechamel arancini and other fried Mediterranean items (including Maltese pastizzi) are there for afternoon spritzes and wines, or while-you-wait snacking for anyone getting takeaway sandwiches.
Cassar is sad to see the pasta bar go but excited about the next chapter. “That was fun, we did that for two years. Now, let’s do something else.”
Keep an eye out for one-off events, DJ sets, courtyard barbecues and the launch of catering in the former sandwich shop space.
Breakfast and lunch daily; drinks and snacks Fri-Sat.
Shop 9, 4-6 Gilbert Street, Torquay, mortadeli.com.au
Between Torquay and Geelong, Booln Booln is a gum tree-fringed cafe for road trippers to put on their radar. With a menu that spotlights First Nations ingredients, it’s the first venue of Troy and Cerisa Benjamin, founders of tea company Blak Brews. Since 2023, they’ve been creating cuppas featuring kakadu plum, quandong, desert lime and other native Australian ingredients.
“Having our own space [is] like turning the page on a brand-new chapter,” says Troy.
The cafe is part of the Wathaurong Booln Booln Cultural Centre, which is set on bushland with a wildlife sanctuary attached.
Get jaffles including four-hour kangaroo ragu and wattleseed dukkah, or lemon myrtle-spiked chimichurri chicken. For kids, there are classic toasties and roo sausage rolls. On Fridays, the Outback High Tea ($60) includes treats like salted caramel-Vegemite macarons and saltbush-pepperberry quiches plus bottomless tea and a wildlife sanctuary visit.
The cafe serves the entire Blak Brews range, with Troy’s pick being Red Centre, a tangy blend of rosehip, quandong and hibiscus. Diehard coffee drinkers can still get their fix, with house-roasted beans used.
410 Surf Coast Highway, Geelong, wathaurongcc.org.au
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Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food’s Melbourne eating out and restaurant editor and editor of The Age Good Food Guide.
