Lantana, Fitzrovia, London

I went to Lantana today with some friends for brunch. We were 5 and at 11.45am, we obviously had to queue, but it wasn’t that long. The lady that got our table and menus and the other guy taking our order were both very nice. One of my friend ordered a Bloody Mary and he said he was going to make it himself because he loved the drink. She said it was very good, so it was a nice touch. One of the flat whites in our order got missing and we had to ask for it again, but apart from that everything went smoothly despite the queue and how crowded was the place.

The food was very good as well. Everything in the menu seemed delicious and really tasty, I wanted to try the brioche French toast with vanilla ricotta, but felt like eating something savoury, so I ordered poached eggs on toast with a side of roasted tomatoes. The eggs were perfect, but the toast was a bit too chewy. One of my friends asked it he could have some butter but he never got it (?).

Overall, I’d try other places before coming back to Lantana, but this is definitely a good place to have brunch on the weekend if you are willing to queue.

One of my friends took me there for lunch. She say that the place was amazing, so I went with very high expectations. The place is nice and cozy, the coffee was indeed good, scrambled eggs and mushrooms were tasty too, but sadly I do agree with fellow qypers about customer service, quite rude, as if they couldn't be bothered to talk to you... smiling and being polite cost nothing but give so much. I'd try somewhere else next time

Lantana is another great place for a coffee and something to eat in London. I enjoyed a cappucino, and then when I became hungry I opted for scrambled eggs on toast with a tasty fresh orange juice. Does not sound impressing, but it is. The bread is really (!) good! Even the pepper on the table tasted excellent.

There is also some seating outside available, what could be nice on a sunny day.

I had high hopes for this place as barista friends had recommended it. I was hugely disappointed. I don't care if my barista is surly, its their prerogative as they drink too much coffee so have massive mood swings. But its my first time in Lantana, and asking what coffee they have seemed to be a sin (I was hoping for some sort of brew bar as like I said I'd heard good things). So anyway the latte art was sloppy, it was poured from the same jug so the first flattie was too fluffy and it was actually on the cold side. Probably a cold cup. Com'on guys sort it out!

Try Banana Bread And Hot Chocolate with Sambuca.
It tastes heavenly.

Lovely atmosphere and great food as well.
For lunch I had Spanish Style eggs ad they were great.

I definitely recommend this place.

I like Lantana for some things.

Like when I'm looking for a cozy place to study, I go to Lantana. When I feel like being hidden in a little back street in Central London, I go to Lantana.

The coffee is good and the atmosphere is usually buzzing.

However, I have to agree with many of the posters here- the people working there are just not friendly. They all just kind of look like they don't wanna be there and despise you for being a customer. It makes no sense at all. They don't try to make you feel accommodated or welcome.

So... three stars from me. Lantana, please change your staff's attitudes towards customers and CUSTOMER SERVICE- or change your staff. There are many good coffee shops in Fitzrovia that manage to have both good coffee and good service (and remember, after all, that you are a BUSINESS serving and competing for CUSTOMERS).

I only ever really go to Lantana for coffee to take away. It's been excellent nearly every time and my colleague and I refer to the lovely girls working there as the Sirens of Lantana as we find it difficult to resist the attraction of the fine coffee.

Lantana does have one minus point against it though, and it's quite a big one. I went there and sat down with a friend who had a terrible espresso. We complained and were given another one that was equally bad, but the person serving proceeded to try and give us a lesson in espresso. We both know how espresso should taste, and this was not it. She then tried some herself and agreed with us that it didn't taste right, but we still had to pay for it which I thought was rather cheeky.

Lantana only gets 3 stars because of this infraction. It hasn't stopped me from going there, but they need to do better with so much competition in the area.

my reply to rs ..who complained how they were treated. Well i run a cafe and we get people who buy a coffee sit and want to read papers and CHILL out all day. They dont understand that the cafe owners have overheads to pay and CANNOT AFFORD for people to CHILL out hours on end.

There are places where you can buy a 16oz cup of mediocre coffee read books and papers and stay all day STARBUCKS is the name.

I cannot stand cheap skates such as RS .. My hat goes off to Lantana...keep up the good work

For photos see the Greedy Diva @ http://greedydiva.blogspot.com/2010/02/lantana-cafe-melbo...

At 10am on Saturday morning, I find myself lying belly up on a purple yoga matt pondering (1) what on earth the strange smell is, (2) why the man next to me is emitting whale noises, and (3) how long it will be before I vomit, pass out or run screaming from the room in a frantic panic attack.

"You must not leave the room for 90 minutes" warns the merciless Bikram yoga Lieutenant Colonel through a hazy 41 degree Celsius fog of B.O., visibly steaming body heat and dripping with sweat underarm hair. As I concentrate on the overwhelming task of breathing, she suggests that I and Libby, my fellow Bikram boot camper, wave to the room to earmark ourselves as the only Bikram first timers, presumably for the sole purpose of letting the others know which ones to watch between downward dogs for entertainment purposes.

I emerge 90 minutes and a confronting communal shower later, relieved of 30 kilos of body fluid, with a traffic light red face, poodle hair frizz and a mildly startled/manic gaze, all of which suggests to Libby she best get me quickly to the nearest source of food. Lantana Cafe beckons.

Behind Lantana Cafe is the story of a woman from Melbourne on a serious mission: to show the London public that breakfast can offer more than "the full English" or eggs florentine, washed down with a mug of workman's tea.

As reported in the February 2010 edition of Olive magazine, Sheelagh Ryan quit her job as a policy advisor to an Australian minister, took on waitressing jobs for free on weekends in Melbourne cafes to learn the ropes while waiting for her visa to clear, and eventually found the site in Charlotte Place that now stands home to one of the most popular cafes in London. The La Marzocca espresso machine was promptly installed, and an Australian style brunch menu was put into action. And so it was that Lantana Cafe won Time Out's award for Best New Cafe 2009.

Like for all caffeine oriented antipodeans, for me the key to a treasured breakfast haunt is the coffee. I'll go out for a morning coffee then go home to make my own breakfast if I must. Lantana's flat whites rate up there with the best of London's (select few) great coffee shops. What differentiates Lantana from all of them (except perhaps The Providores in Marylebone, the enterprise of 2 New Zealanders) is its typically antipodean style, hearty brunch menu.

I can never go past the grilled haloumi, mushroom, sauteed spinach, corn fritter (slightly charred on this occasion), roasted tomato with chunky, wholemeal sourdough toast. The haloumi is never rubbery or tasteless at Lantana.

I dined here on Saturday with Libby and Moira who sampled the alluringly runny poached eggs on sourdough.

Also popular are the corn fritters, and the baked eggs with chorizo, mushrooms, spinach and spicy tomato sauce served with grilled flatbread and creme fraiche.

Or you can keep it simple with toasted sourdough (with Vegemite - hallelujah) or toasted banana bread with date and pecan butter.

The only downside - the hideously long Saturday brunch queue.

Enjoy. Just save some haloumi for me.

I love Lantana. I LOVE LANTANA. I lurrrve Lantana, there's no other way to put it. Try the baked eggs or the corn fritters, you won't regret it and hey, I hear the coffee's good too!

The staff are rude and unfriendly, and the coffee is lukewarm. It is completely overrated. There are much better independent places in London where you can drink Monmouth (and other) coffees. I'd avoid at all costs.

It's small, cosy and if you can get a table - don't give it up!

Brilliant coffee, wonderful brunch menu, service not fussy. Total highlight for the area - but needs more seats!!

After posting the review below, I was tracked down by the owner and offered a free breakfast - very sweet. It took me a while to get round to taking the offer up (still pretty annoyed) but yesterday I went - I had good food and polite service. The place was a bit queue'y but nothing to make my blood boil. Coffee excellent as ever.

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1*

When I first stumbled on this place a couple of months ago, I was happily in love and glad to recommend it to friends. Sadly the honeymoon period seems to be over. Despite impressive coffee, an inventive and well executed menu and a playful, elegant interior (surely these three reasons are enough in themselves to suggest I had found a great local), I won't be visiting Lantana again. I won't go into the details here for fear of sounding puerile or melodramatic, but I can summarise with the conclusion that this was the rudest and indeed worst service I have ever received in London. I was enraged to the point of leaving the cafe before placing an order and appalled to be entirely dismissed by noxious, disinterested sarcasm when returning to explain my disappointment later in the day. If you can tolerate being treated with utter contempt, you'll find good things. Otherwise, I recommend finding somewhere with a little more soul, humanity (in fact) and decent manners. A hot spot for hipster masochists.

I thought the coffee was good and the free wifi is always appreciated.

Unfortunately they forgot that I paid for my bill and after I left, they charged my friend for it again.

I haven't tried the brownies but I've been told that I should so will venture back at some point.

Why has it taken me so long to find this place?! Being tucked away in Charlotte Place probably didn't help. Another colony-originating purveyor of coffee the way it's meant to be, saving Londoners from the chains.

Perhaps it's a bit too small and homely to deal with hordes craving a quick caffeine fix, but why rush? Sit back and let the anticipation build... your tastebuds won't be disappointed. Top notch banana bread too, although very pricey.

Although not sampled, I did spy they also serve bottles of Coopers Ale and Bundaberg Ginger Beer.

Great coffee (thanks for bringing your Australian coffee to London)
Great food (love the haloumi breakfast and baked eggs)
Great staff (always fun and friendly- don't know what some previous reviewers are talking about!)
Sure, they're busy but that's the price you pay for being the best in London. I, for one, am happy to wait.
Truly excellent to find such a great cafe in London, it reminds me of my holidays in Melbourne.

Update: So their brownies are still the best in London (I've been several times but that's the only thing I buy) but it seems that standards have slipped in Lantana regarding customer service - it's so hit and miss. Sometimes they'll be lovely, and sometimes they'll be a bit frosty. So I'm taking a star off for that reason. I hope Lantana sort it out because, other than that, it would be pretty perfect.

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I don't think it's fair to give Lantana a proper review until I've ordered some proper food. But I will say this: Best. Brownies. Ever.

When I was halfway through eating it I actually felt sad because it was nearly finished and (being at home) I couldn't buy another one.

Probably for the best really, as they are £2 each (to takeaway) and I could eat a lot of those.

This place also has free wifi (though I'd avoid setting up camp over lunch, it gets very busy) and it's on the lovely Charlotte Place.

Can't wait to go back.

One of the first places I discovered in London. I love it. It is quirky and hip - and the coffee is great. More what I would expect to find in Australia or New Zealand than London. The staff have always been very friendly - and they don't burn the milk on my coffee - for which I am extremely grateful.

I have just returned to Sydney from a trip to London and was lucky enough to have been told about Lantana. Otherwise, I would have gone through caffeine withdrawals during my stay! Lantana had just won their Time Out award so the place was understandably busy, but there was a good buzz and we were treated to great food, great service and extremely good coffee in a groovy atmosphere. It is definitely one to go back to. The corn fitters were the best I have had - and the prices were very good value (especially considering the quality of the food).

I really like this place but am affected so much by the reviews and feel that I was treated as invisible on my first visit to buy a take-away from Lantana that I am afraid to take friends back there. On my second visit, my food didn't arrive, but I prompted the waitress and she was really nice about it. So I'm torn about going back again. It is admirable that the owner has made an apology on one of the blogs and my sympathy goes to her. I think the laid back vibe of the place can be attributed to the sense of a group of friends who're twenty-somethings running their dream caf and so it's sad when customers get the wrong end of treatment by feeling like they're 'in the way'. Although I didn't experience any of the negatives mentioned in other reviews, it feels awful to read them. I get the sense that the people who wrote the negative reviews were being really gracious too - even apologising for their unhappiness. Wow! That means the cafe has real potential if in the face of my cafe deal-breakers people can be so gracious. My cafe deal-breakers are: being ignored, being glared at, being talked about by staff within my earshot, being kept waiting for longer than 40mins, being told to leave!! Would be interested to hear other people's deal-breakers too...btw, has anyone tried the cafe in Copenhagen called Bang and Jensen -that place is awesome! Peace to all.