Inspired by the thriving cafe culture in
Australia and New Zealand, the co-owners of Antipodean café have gone to
great lengths to bring the taste of quality coffee and Kiwi/Aussie cafe
fusion food to Jakarta.
“We opened Antipodean because at the time Jakarta was a place that lacked a contemporary cafe culture. Coffee was enjoyed as kopi tubruk by many but cafes, as I know them, were few and far between,” Evans said. “The cafe scene in Australia and New Zealand is one of the best in the world and I wanted to bring a piece of that to Jakarta.”
Evans chose to name the cafe Antipodean, which means coming from or pertaining to Australia or New Zealand, because the name encompasses the concept the duo is trying to emulate. “I love it whenever one of my expat customers says, ‘wow, this is just like eating in Melbourne,” he said.
Antipodean Cafe is small and regularly bursts at the seams with diners at lunch or dinner time. with around 20 indoor tables, two outdoor tables and a leather seat running alongside one of its walls, on most days there are customers already waiting outside when the cafe opens its doors at 8 am.
In fact, the cafe’s popularity in Jakarta has encouraged its owners to open branches in other countries. “Our Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur store is five times bigger and the new Kuala Lumpur CBD store is six times bigger. Antipodean will be opening a third Kuala Lumpur store in February next year and also in Abu Dhabi early next year,” said Evans.
So what is the secret of Antipodean’s success? Evans has traveled as far as Papua, Flores, west Timor, Sumbawa and Sulawesi in his search for the perfect coffee beans for the cafe.
“Finding coffee in Indonesia is easy; finding great coffee has taken me a decade and I am always still looking,” he said. “we specialise in 100 percent Indonesian coffee. while that is not unusual today, eight years ago Merdeka was the only company using 100 percent Indonesian Arabica coffee.”
Because the duo purchases coffee beans from small holder growers rather than brokers, it’s not surprising that Antipodean serves some of the best coffee in Jakarta. Their coffee menu features good, old favorites including espresso, flat white, cappuccino and latte, along with some lesser known choices such as piccolo latte, doppio and ristretto.
Antipodean bills itself as a “community cafe,” a meeting point for people in the neighborhood to chat, gossip and romance over a cup of quality coffee and top-notch fare. The notion of community is also meaningful to Evans in a very different way. Antipodean gives back to the community that is its biggest supporter, the coffee farmers of Indonesia.
“We have long-standing sponsor arrangements with the British women’s Association and the Australian and New Zealand Association. Through that we give a percentage of our coffee sale profit to the coffee farmers,” he said.
Authentically Homemade
Antipodean Cafe prides itself on making all their products on the premises, including roasting their own coffee and baking their own cakes. “Often we find that our closest competitors try to copy us, but really when you do everything yourself, in your own kitchen, this isn’t a problem,” Evans said. “Most of our competitors buy their products. This means we have the advantage of being a cafe where our passion for food and coffee can be seen in the menu.”
In fact, at the moment Antipodean’s menu is only limited by the venue’s small space. All dishes are unique and impeccably presented. And while neither Australia nor New Zealand has its own original cuisine, Antipodean thrives on the fact that both countries are great at putting their own spin on the traditional dishes of other countries.
Antipodean must be one of the few cafes in Jakarta that serves an all-day 8 am to 8 pm breakfast. This includes a hearty serving of grilled tomatoes, scrambled eggs, baked beans, toast and a choice of either bacon or chicken sausages. The cafe’s Big Breakfast provides a slight variation with mushrooms, scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, hash brown and toast. The menu also offers other tempting breakfast options, including smoked salmon omelette, muesli honey yoghurt, fruit salad and banana pancake with butterscotch sauce.
The lunch and dinner menus feature mixed salad with couscous, haloumie cheese and balsamic; grilled chicken with green beans, tomatoes and balsamic; lamb burger, open bacon or beef sandwich with lettuce, rocket, tomatoes on sour dough; and Burmese shredded chicken sandwich. There is also the new healthy menu option, which includes a roasted vegetable salad with eggplant, sweet potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, red paprica, fetta cheese and balsamic.
While cafes are the lifeblood of the social scene in Australia and New Zealand, Evans says they are just beginning to find their footing in Jakarta.
“Jakarta and most of Southeast Asia is a generation behind New Zealand and Australia when it comes to cafe culture. There is a recent history of people opening cafes in the capital purely because they think there is money to be made,” Evens said. “True cafes are driven by pure love of coffee, love of the kitchen and first and foremost love of looking after your customers and making them feel that the cafe is their home away from home.” Anita Surewicz
[source: Coffee's Up, Down Under!]
