If you’ve found yourself sipping a matcha tea, or munching on a plate of matcha pancakes, you’ve probably met Matcha Maiden, the ever popular matcha powder making its way around the Melbourne food scene. The duo behind the brand, Sarah Holloway and Nic Davidson, have taken our love of the green stuff one step further, partnering with brothers Mark and Attil Filippelli from Il Fornio, and opening Matcha Mylk Bar in St Kilda.
Melbourne has welcomed this new venue with open arms. Matcha Mylk Bar ran out of food every day on opening weekend, showing that even they couldn’t have foreseen how popular it would be. Why so popular? Matcha Mylk Bar is a vegan cafe created by non-vegans. While health is the number one priority, flavour is definitely the second. And there were no short cuts taken on that one. The most talked about dish on the menu is the vegan eggs. They have the same nutritional profile as a regular egg and are made with coconut, turmeric, sweet potato, and linseed. Therefore making ‘eggs and sides’ doable for everyone.
Plus their love of health has taken them around the world, creating five bowls based on each ‘blue zone’ in the world. Blue zones are places where the population lives the longest, mainly due to their plant based diet. The bowls come from Sardinia Italy, Okinawa Japan, Loma Linda California, Ikaria Greece, and Nicoya Peninsular Costa Rica. You’ll get matcha green tea rice with sweet potatoes, kale, edamame, sesame, and edible seaweeed if you visit japan, while you’ll eat quinoa, corn, corn fritters, peas, mixed beans, sweet potato, and dehydrated blood orange from Costa Rica. The rest of the menu features serious breakfast bowls of acai, dragon fruit, and chia, matcha pancakes, avocado plates, and a long list of eggs and sides.
The drinks menu is impressive alone. With matcha being served seven ways, it’s obviously a focus. As are the lattes, think regular, beetroot, cacao, or turmeric. And of course no vegan restaurant would be complete without a killer smoothie list. We’re fans of the Free the Nibs – cacao nibs, peanut butter, banana, raw cacao, dates, cacao almond mylk, and vegan protein.
Matcha Mylk Bar
72 Acland Street, St Kilda
official website
