Frank & Luna’s Review

May 1, 2018 by Foodie Rich

I’m an impatient old bugger. I hate waiting for anything. Be it the highly anticipated annual iPhone release, all the way to waiting for that takeaway driver to arrive on my doorstep, it really grinds my gears. Simply waiting for the weekend to arrive is enough to make me Mr Grumpy; I just seem to spend my whole life wishing time away; I need to try and snap out of that! Being the foodie I am, waiting for anything food related drives me up the wall, especially when it’s a new eatery. I see the adverts, the menu teasers on social media, promises of a lavish opening night……forget all that, just hurry up and bloody open! Top of the foodie waiting list currently is Ravens in Southend. Fellow foodies, you have it on good authority, this place is gonna be awesome. Mark my words, with the pedigree of gourmet expertise in the kitchen there, the food is certain to be next level. I’ll leave that little teaser with you!

Back to this week’s instalment. Just a couple of weeks ago a new little place caught my eye. Tucked away off Hamlet Court road, on Canewdon Road, a few new business units have gone up. The builders have been there for a few months, and it didn’t look that exciting. I just thought a few boring offices were on the cards. How wrong could I be. Yes, as I suspected those offices did appear, but with the addition of a smart looking cafe. With its neon sign in the window ‘Frank & Luna’s, it immediately grabbed my attention. I liked its style!

Poor old Westcliff often gets a bad rap. Sometimes described as the poorer cousin of Leigh, it takes a lot confidence for a cafe, which would not look out of place along the Broadway, to open in Westcliff. Clearly, things are on the up. Frank and Luna’s appear to be doing things right. Walk in, and straight away you’ll see the venue has been finished with an eye for detail. Take the toilets for example. The hand soap; it’s Aesop no less. I say this a lot, much can be said about a bar, cafe or restaurants toilet. There is one restaurant in Leigh, which shall remain nameless, who place Molton Brown hand soap dispensers in the toilet, sounds good right? Wrong! You’ll not find fragrant Black Pepper or Orange and Bergamot soap in these. Oh no, they refill them with a rather suspect smelling hand wash; reminiscent of that dispensed in the toilets during my school days! No such worries here, at Frank & Luna’s your mits can wallow in the pure luxury of REAL Aesop!

The food? For breakfast, brunch or lunch these guys have got your back. Simple sausage and bacon sandwiches, or how about a dippy egg and soldiers? All are good old café classics. Fancy something a little more substantial? The Avocado on toasted rye should hit the spot, and with the option to add egg, feta, smoked salmon or bacon, brunch doesn’t get much better! After 11am you can grab yourself a focaccia sandwich for lunch. How about smoked ham with Swiss cheese, mayo, mustard and watercress? Or, if you wanna upgrade your boring tuna mayo sarni, why not go for their tuna Nicoise focaccia. Packed full of tuna, mayo, egg, olives, onion and parsley, that’s how a tuna sandwich should be! They even serve up a rather tasty house sharing board, piled high with all sorts of delights such as olives, cheese, grilled peppers and so on.

Oh, they serve booze too!! Yay!! I love a café that offers more than just coffee! But check this out; it would’ve been all too easy for the good people at Frank & Luna’s to chuck a few bottles of Peroni in the fridge or an uninteresting Pinot Grigio. They’ve given this a lot of thought and kept things as local as it gets! Displayed behind the counter are bottles from my favourite local brewers, none other than our beloved Leigh on Sea Brewery; woo hoo! And the wine? They’ve called upon the services of Leigh’s very own award winning independent wine merchant, the gorgeous Vino Vero! So, people, you can grab a sandwich or a sharing board with a fine beer or wine to match!

Lou and I visited here a couple of weeks ago for Sunday brunch. Lou’s smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel was bloody good. They didn’t skimp on the salmon, and with the addition of tangy capers, it gave this simple classic a little edge. I had a bacon sarni. I was feeling a little fuzzy from the night before, so I was in need of a cure. Yeah, it was ok, but to be honest I was expecting a little more. It was a bacon sandwich so no complaints there, but after seeing their unique little touches to all the other dishes leaving the kitchen, Lou’s bagel included, I thought my sarni needed just a little more work. The bread was lovely. Thick door stops of soft white crusty bread, perfect! But the bacon disappointed a little. Just three streaky rashers. It tasted good, but, I don’t know, it just needed more. Some good back bacon would make a better sandwich in my view. Oh, maybe I’m just being a little too ‘bacon’ critical, I do feel a little bad if I’m honest. I found it hard to fault anything else. So please, don’t let my bacon sandwich comments put you off. That aside, what made this brunch, was my drink of choice. They knocked me up a rather nice Bloody Mary; Perfect. A bacon sandwich with a Bloody Mary certainly hits the spot when you’re feeling less than fresh!

I’m willing to forgive the bacon sandwich, as they’ve got everything else spot on. It’s a superb addition to the area and certainly gets a big foodie thumbs up from me. They’ve even got a wine tasting event coming up; and with Vino Vero sure to be behind that, it’s gonna be one hell of a night! I said earlier things are looking up around Westcliff. Some of you may not agree with me, but just take a look around. The West Road Tap, Anke’s tea room, The simplistic and rather basic appeal of Café O Portugues, and of course now Frank & Luna’s. Westcliff has got an almost village feel about the place. I guess you could say Westcliff is to Leigh what Shoreditch is to Chelsea! So, people, take a little trip down Canewdon Road in Westcliff and give Frank & Luna’s a go; you’ll see what I’m talking about, it’s a wonderfully friendly café.