Lunch Break: The Ark Cafe

There’s no greater feeling than discovering hidden gems in your area, so I was pretty pleased to find a new unique cafe on the northside.

Tucked into an oddly shaped shopping centre is The Ark, a quaint illustrated cafe. What does that mean? All the furniture is painted to look like it’s hand drawn and the walls are painted in similar style, making it look like it’s straight out of a cartoon or comic book.

The drink menu is expansive with tea, Italian soda, lattes and bubble drinks. I was tempted to get one of the iced teas, until I saw the latte flavours. Choosing between unconventional flavours like butter pecan, cookie dough, tiramisu and toasted marshmallow was difficult, but I ended up going with an iced cookie dough latte.

The cookie dough flavour wasn’t strong, but it was flavourful enough that you felt like you were drinking liquid cookies, in the best way possible. The food menu also has plenty of options varying from croissants, cookies and banana bread to sandwiches. The Hawaiian Grilled Cheese has BBQ chicken, pineapple, gruyère and havarti cheese pressed between sourdough bread.

I’m not one to seek out spruced-up grilled cheese sandwiches, but I couldn’t resist how delicious the Hawaiian Grilled Cheese sounded, and it was delicious. The sourdough bread wasn’t too heavy and was perfect for a light lunch. The BBQ chicken was flavourful combined with the pineapple and melted cheese.