Since opening in 2021, Lokha Cafe has gone from strength to strength; its reputation for Vietnamese fusion food growing beyond its Alexandria shopfront.
Chef and co-founder Simon Mataafa boasts a 20-year career in hospitality and says the pace of work in fine dining restaurants has prepared him for the lunch rush at Lokha. “In fine dining it’s very accurate plating but it’s very fast paced, so your hands need to be able to move at the right speed so you’re not messing everything up. It’s the same thing we do here at Lokha,” he says. “People only have a 30-minute break for lunch so we need to accurately pump out food so you’re not in line for an hour. That’s our purpose: we have eight people working and we just gun it!”
Lokha’s menu boasts banh mi, spring rolls and pho, as well as tacos and burgers with an Asian influence. “With our banh mi we have beef, pork, chicken and vegetarian tofu. The karaage is the most popular. We follow the Japanese-style recipe but we infuse more flavour into it; our own ’11 herbs and spices’, as such,” Simon says. “That’s what propelled us forward in the beginning. People kept coming in saying ‘I want karaage! I want karaage!’ And then we pushed them towards the pork, grilled chicken, and beef.”
Simon’s favourite dish on the menu? The grilled chicken. “My sister-in-law makes a Vietnamese-style chicken with a kaffir lime soy sauce; that with our fish sauce vermicelli salad. When you mix them together it makes a fusion of, like, crazy flavour in your mouth.”
Living in nearby Zetland, Simon believes the Alexandria area — and Australia as a whole — has the perfect mix of people and food. “Our customers aren’t just Aussie; they’re Chinese, Korean, Greek, Italian — it’s very exciting to see. Australia is very multicultural now, and I would say we have the best food in the world because we have such a wide range.”
And if you want to taste some the best East-meets-West dishes Sydney has to offer, then head to Lokha Cafe.
LOKHA VIET FUSION
1/414 Botany Rd, Beaconsfield NSW 2015
@Lokha_Viet_Fusion
0434 036 555 (ORDERS)
