Driving Creek Cafe Review

Leonie and I needed a break, after a long spell at the computers. We travelled up to Auckland to finish off some business before heading out to the Coromandel in search of peace, quiet and laid-back family time with our energetic four-year old. Sadly, our timing was out.

We had chosen to work through the last of summer and now here we were in Coromandel township in the midst of a 150 year subtropical downpour that lasted throughout our stay.

On our last visit 18 months earlier, we had taken visiting relatives to Barry Brickell’s Driving Creek Railway, and on the way had noticed the rather organic, which is to say Gaudiesque-sculptured garden of the otherwise obscured (and organic) Driving Creek Café – just 50 metres down the road from Barry’s carpark. Now, hungry and slightly depressed by the rain, we decided to check it out. On the way there, the ever-certain Josephine informed us that she wanted bacon and eggs for breakfast – a sentiment that I could only endorse.

When we arrived, the place was crowded with obvious locals, chatting, reading the news over morning coffee and checking their emails on the broadband and wireless networks.

I scanned the menu. No bacon and eggs. Further checks and it began to dawn that we were in a vegetarian establishment. As they say, “some of my best friends are vegetarian…” But not me. and certainly not Josephine!
I decided on a poached egg breakfast that came with toast, chutneys and pesto, which were delicious. Leonie and Josephine both had the pancakes which were monumental and dripping with fruits, berries, yoghurt and maple syrup. They were happy to provide a child-portion for our little one, which she
consumed happily.

The coffee was excellent, organic and roasted locally, and was supplemented by a wide range of organic and herbal loose
leaf teas.

Other tempting dishes included scrambled organic tofu, which comes with home baked rye bread, mushrooms and roast spuds, a selection of cakes and slices – and almost everything can be adapted to be either gluten free and/or vegan.

Once the edge was taken off my hunger I began to look around. The soft curve of the mud-plaster walls, asymmetrical arches and hand-crafted detailing took me nostalgically back to my time in Northern California in the mid-1970s.

The curving, highly sculptural driftwood column dovetailing perfectly into the structural beam reminded me of Gaudi’s Guell Chapel in Barcelona – the ability to work with the natural world instead of against it. Beautifully done, with love and care as well as with a sense of meaning and identity. None of your hard-edge Auckland minimalism here. Good food, good people in a beautifully crafted environment. No wonder the place was popular with the locals! But we were made to feel right at home.

I wanted to photograph the building, but the weather precluded that. We will have to come back another time.

by Tony Ward