You’re terrible Muriel

But you mural, you’re lovely.

When a friend suggested that his sister draw a mural for one of the walls of the café I tried to look interested and force a smile as I imagined scenes of rain forests, leaping dolphins, palm trees and sunsets.


Then I saw some of his sister's beautiful and stylish illustrations and realised that her mural would have little in common with Muriel Hesslop from Porpoise spit.

Kat Macleod is the talented Melbourne artist who created the whimsical scene on the back wall of the cafe. It makes me feel happy every time I look at it as I'm transported into the serene, lush landscape that Kat has created. The first time I saw it I could almost hear the sound of crickets and feel the Australian humidity.

My favourite seat in the café is the corner nook where I can sit by myself under the skylight, unnoticed amongst the foliage.

It seems strange that someone I have never met and who has never even been to Lantana is such an integral part of the café. Hopefully one day Kat and I will have a face to face conversation over breakfast at Lantana, but until then we’ll have to settle for a cyber conversation over the keyboard.

Have you always wanted to be an illustrator?

Kat: I have loved drawing for as long as I can remember, and probably wanted to be an illustrator as soon as I knew what one was. I always wanted to be a graphic designer too, which is cool because now I do both! I co-run a graphic design company called Ortolan with my two business partners Chloe Quigley and Simone Elder. And we are very proud to have designed the identity and graphics for Lantana. It was a very fun job, and so nice to work on both the graphic design components and the illustration.

Which artists do you most admire?

Kat: I have so many favourites. My top three are Julie Verhoeven, Rene Gruau and Aubrey Beardsley. I love them because they are masters at drawing the human form, and have their own beautiful and inimitable styles.

What was your inspiration for the Lantana mural?

Kat: We loved when you told us that your cafe was going to be called Lantana, named after the striking, noxious weed which is a pest in the Australian countryside. I wanted to illustrate the beautiful invasive plant growing wild like they do in Aussie back-yards, giving a sense of taking over the cafe, but in a beautiful way. We thought the super-scale would work really well, and I included lots of details so that when you walk downstairs you discover a wonderful detailed weedy-world full of gigantic birds, beetles crawling among the foliage. My favourite part is the giant magpie peeking out the stairs.


Was it an enjoyable project to work on?

Kat: Yes! I had so much fun researching all kinds of Australian flora and fauna, and I loved working in the all-black palette. I used fineliners, ink, gouache and black watercolour to create the piece. The original drawing is very big, it’s made of two large poster-sheets, it took over two desks in the studio. It had to be scanned on a flat bed scanner in many seperate parts, and pieced together at full resolution in Photoshop. The final product on the wall instore is about ten times the size of the original.

The mural gets pieced together in London

What is your favourite cafe?

Kat: We are spoiled for choice in Melbourne. There are so many interesting, eclectic cafes with great food and friendly staff, especially on the North-side of the river which is where we live. I have so many favourite places, but the best would have to be The Breakfast Club in Northcote. All their dishes are named after characters and actors from the movie. The food is amazing. Some other favourite local places include Julio’s in North Fitzroy, A Minor Place in Brunswick, and Mixed Business in Clifton Hill. They all make amazing food and excellent coffee, and are very interesting places with lots of personality.

What is your favourite breakfast?

Kat: On the weekend I love any kind of interesting vegetarian breakfast concoction, and a soy latte. During the week I am boring and just get a take away soy latte on the run from Tre Bicchieri in Carlton. They make great breakfasts too but there’s no time to stop and eat because I am usually running late for work.


Some of the other customers at Tre Bicchierri who are clearly not rushing to get to work.

More on Kat Macleod...

The face of adversity

Monday the 2nd of February 2009 will be remembered by me as the day that 'adverse weather conditions' became the latest weasle words to be accepted into the vernacular as have ‘the war on terror’, ‘credit crunch’, and ‘the journey’ that every X-Factor contestant blubs about.

6.30am Monday morning Lisa, Lantana’s head chef, rang me tell me that she didn’t think it would be worth opening as no one could get to work. I opened the curtains and was amazed by the whiteness and the silence. Snow everywhere and not a car or bus on the road.


I thought I should still go into Lantana for a couple of hours to catchup on some paperwork so I went on to the Transport for London website to see what public transport was running. I smiled when I read that no buses were running and many tube lines were suspended due to “adverse weather conditions”. I love obtuse government speak. But as I proceeded on my journey to the café (a physical one, not a metaphorical one), I discovered that this expression had gained widespread adoption as the new word for snow. Shops displayed signs saying they were shut “due to adverse weather conditions”, every five minutes an announcement was made in tube stations about delays caused by “the adverse weather conditions” and the next day the newspapers told of school closures, losses to small businesses and numbers of people unable to get to work due to the “adverse weather conditions”.

I didn’t get to do any paperwork or play in the snow because I ended up making coffee for a steady stream of regulars who came into Lantana throughout the day. So for me, the best part about the adverse weather conditions is that it gave everyone an opportunity to talk and read about something other than the ‘global financial crisis’.

To the victor go the spoils...

of toasted banana bread with date and pecan butter.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Jenny won Lantana’s mintie competition.

The entries
The judging
The longest mintie wrapper in London

The other entrants may take some consolation in knowing that this is not the first time that Jenny has taken first prize in a mintie wrapper tearing competition. At primary school Jenny won a packet of musk sticks for creating the longest unbroken mintie wrapper chain. She claims that her breakfast of choice at Lantana was a much better first prize. Note, champions eat bananas, not pancakes or fried eggs and bacon.

Going the full mintie on Australia Day

Step 1. Unwrap a mintie



Step 2. Eat the mintie



Step 3. While sucking on the mintie, tear its wrapper into a long unbroken strip




Tomorrow, lucky customers (and everyone is lucky at Lantana) will get a mintie. The person who produces the longest unbroken chain from their mintie wrapper will:

1. Have a long piece of paper

2. Have some explaining to do as to why they were away from the office for so long getting a coffee

3. Win a free breakfast at Lantana!

In with the new

New table
New customers

New menu

New Zealander


aka Geoff [Jiff]. But we love him anyway.

The good and the greater pub guide

My grandmother used to tell me that pleasures are often greatest in anticipation.

Take the welcoming sign of a country pub as you walk towards it on a cold winter’s day after a long muddy walk.



You close your eyes and can almost taste that first sip of bitter sweet ale as you settle in beside a warm, crackling open fire. Then you walk inside to an empty, soulless pub, hear Phil Collins playing on the radio, see a bar heater sitting in the fireplace and are offered Fosters and Becks on tap.

Anticipation > Pleasure.

On rare occasions, however, you walk through the door of the pub and the fire is blazing, you are met by a wall of laughter and lively conversation, offered a choice of local ales and are allowed, even encouraged, to order pudding and another bottle of wine long after the kitchen has closed and last orders have been called.

Anticipation ≤ Pleasure.

That is a very great thing indeed and was how I spent new year's day 2009; tucked inside the Compasses Inn at Lower Chicksgrove, Wiltshire .


According to the Good Pub Guide 2008 the acid test for a good pub is that it has some special quality that would make strangers enjoy visiting it. That might be “good value food”, “out of the ordinary drinks”, “lovely surroundings” or “extraordinary collections of bric-a-brac”. Above all, the Guide informs:

What makes the good pub is its atmosphere. You should be able to feel at home there, and feel not just that you’re glad you’ve come but they’re glad you’ve come. It follows from this that a great many ordinary locals, perfectly good in their own right, don’t earn a place in the Guide. What makes them attractive to their regular customers (an almost clubby chumminess) may even make strangers feel rather out of place.

I'm after something better than just good. I want to discover those rare pubs that provide greater pleasure than I could possibly anticipate.

After a week of field research I have begun devising an acid test for the Greater Pub Guide 2009. I would be very interested to learn about any pubs that have all of the following indicators of greatness:

A fireplace

Local ales on tap

A characterful publican


Friendly staff

A local permanently perched at the bar


A varied clientele covering a range of social demographics and ages

Good, hearty food inspired by the local produce

...preferably including some intriguing British pub classics eg. steak and kidney stew in Yorkshire pudding


And most importantly, a passion or theme of some sort displayed in the furnishings and décorations.

Farming tools at The Horseshoe Inn, Ebbesbourne Wake, Salisbury, Wiltshire

Photographs of transport at the Three Horseshoes, Burbage, Marlborough, Wiltshire

Hunting at The Museum Inn, in Farnham, Dorset.




Here’s to 2009 being the year of discovering greatness in all its pleasurable forms.

Lantana is on Holiday

Reopening 8am Monday 5 January

Until then, be nice to your family, remember to hydrate and make a resolution to have lots of good food and coffee at Lantana in 2009.

I was going to post a photo of this sign I put on the door of Lantana tonight but as I went to take the photo my camera said "change battery pack" so I tried to take one with my phone but it said "memory card full".

Yes indeed.