As the name suggests the cafe is located in a former mechanic garage and there are little nods to this all through the decor...a tyre here, a wheel rim there, a few car doors on the wall, some old exhausts on a shelf, a car hoist acting as a wine rack. You get the picture.
When we finally got ourselves a table I had massive amounts of trouble trying to decide on what to order. Not because I wanted to eat everything - which I did - but because of the HEFTY prices against each item. $15.00 for a SMALL rocket salad - that's just criminal in my mind, especially when the bowls I saw heading for the tables were pretty petite and I know a WHOLE big bag of rocket costs less than $4.00 in the supermarket. I don't know if the prices were exceptionally high for the public holiday, but still...! If we weren't so hungry I would've gone somewhere else...but I was getting hangry and needed food ASAP.
In the end The Boy and I decided to get two small - albeit pricey things - and go for a light lunch and fill up on dinner when we got home later that night. To start with we choose a Charcuterie Board for THIRTY TWO DOLLARS! My wallet nearly got up and ran out of the restaurant at this point let me tell you. Now, the board was good - everything was very tasty and well presented but I was disappointed that we only got TWO CRACKERS and three small slices of bread with it. I did ask for more crackers and they came to the table with hassle and no extra cost. I thought the meats provided were really nice - prosciutto, hot salami, a potted terrine and some smoked ham and I liked the addition of a rockmelon ball to accompany the prosciutto.
We decided to get a bowl of rosemary salted fries ($9.00) to pad out the charcuterie board. The fries were really good - very flavoursome and I like the addition of rosemary to the mix.
All in all we had a nice lunch. The food was very nice and the atmosphere of the cafe was buzzy + fun. The fit out of the place is quite quirky and the staff were very friendly. Bearing all that in mind the prices were just beyond what I personally think is reasonable for a casual lunchtime eat, or justifiable so we'll be on the hunt for somewhere new to eat in Leura for our next visit.
Leura Garage is at 84 Railway Parade, Leura - NSW. Phone them on (02) 4784 3391.
And now I'll leave you with some photos of the cicadas that had literally taken over the Blue Mountains on the day we visited. They were EVERYWHERE - either crawling up trees, flying about, having "sexy times" with each other or leaving their dead shells all over the place! The noise was deafening. It was actually quite magical until one flew onto me and I put my neck out trying to escape it's little claws.
Chirp chirp.
