The pretty little cafe has become popular with Tuggeranong locals and anyone wanting to add colour to their Instagram page. Photo: Tenele Conway.
Popular Tuggeranong cafe, Rose N Brew, has carved out a niche for itself in the cafe market, and there’s no mistaking who its target audience is. It’s the little girl in the princess sparkle top enthusiastically rolling herself on the floral walls.
She and everyone with an Instagram account.
Adorned from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, in faux flowers in shades of pink, the venue has been custom-built for lovers of pretty things, but as I watched Miss Princess Sparkle in action, I was surprised to see a whole other clientele wandering in and out of the cafe.
Nearby office workers, older couples, lone men looking for a cuppa, mums with prams, dads with baby carriers, there really was no limit in age and gender, and the flamboyant display of pastels deterred no one.
Maybe all these people have personal Instagram accounts lacking botanical displays, or maybe good food and coffee speak for themselves.
Operated by a family local to the area who keep a low profile, they say they were aiming for something authentic and welcoming, an escape from the everyday, and sitting among the riot of petals, it is that escape they were aiming to achieve.
The menu runs the gamut of hearty breakfast dishes, from savoury items like a breakfast stack loaded with bacon, scrambled eggs, Spanish chorizo, avocado salsa and chilli oil to the sweet stuff like a fully loaded Biscoff French toast topped with mascarpone cheese, caramelised bananas, fruit, Biscoff crumble, Biscoff spread and strawberry ice cream.
At lunchtime, a whole new menu kicks in where you can be a little naughty with a Southern fried chicken burger or an Angus beef burger or embrace your healthy side with a tofu poke bowl with red cabbage, edamame beans, rice, fried onions, carrots and cucumber, all topped with a soy dressing.
The brekkie bowl comes with fruit and granola and paired with a dragon fruit smoothie it’s a delight Photo: Tenele Conway.
It’s a nice balance of dishes that would suit the varied audience that I see in the cafe, but I’m not here for any of it. I’ve arrived with a single-minded mission: to demolish more than one dish from the açai bar.
If you’re not familiar with açai, hello, and welcome. It’s 2026, and açai has been a trending food choice for some time now. It hit the big time when the all-wise powers that be decided that an obscure purple berry from an Amazonian palm was a superfood, and what did the West do with that information? We took the berries, blended them with sweeteners like honey or agave, mushed them into something resembling ice cream, and started dishing them up as a sexy little superfood bowl.
In its ice cream/sorbet form, I have no idea if it’s healthy in any way whatsoever, but squeeze it into a large swirl and smother it with toppings, and I don’t really care.
The Refresh Bowl is a nice fruity number with the addition of yoghurt. Photo: Tenele Conway.
The açai menu at Rose N Brew is extensive, and I started with a Brekkie Bowl, which comes loaded with granola, pecans, honey, coconut chips and peanuts.
My first reaction was that it was bloody cold, something I should have put some forethought into before turning up on a crisp autumn morning at a cafe with a wide-open frontage.
Shivering, and trying to bear my burdens quietly, I focused on the food, and it was tasty. The açai berry in this form tastes much like a fairly intense mixed-berry smoothie, and the toppings add a nice variety of sweet and savoury flavours, with plenty of crunch and texture.
Pretending to be virtuous with my flavour choices, I choose the Refresh Bowl. Topped with banana, pineapple chunks, passionfruit and a nice addition of yogurt, it’s a fun fruity number that almost feels like breakfast, if eating sorbet for breakfast is normal in your world.
Having explored the world of fruity breakfast-style bowls, I grab the Oreo bowl to see what açai can bring to dessert. It comes out in a tall swirl, much like a soft-serve ice cream and is smothered in granola, strawberries, banana, Oreo and white chocolate sauce.
The Oreo açaí bowl is one of many dessert-style bowls. Photo: Tenele Conway.
Battling the brain freeze, I’m starting to realise that the açai base in these bowls is the dominant flavour, and it takes a strong fruit to stand up to it. The banana is a winner, but the Oreo topping (Oreo, of course, not being a fruit) gets a little lost in the mix.
Overall, it’s a fun time. A pretty cafe, a solid menu, and Amazonian ‘superfoods’ turned dessert. Worth it.
Rose N Brew Cafe is located at Suite 16/236 Cowlishaw Street, Greenway. It’s open from 8 am to 3 pm Tuesday to Saturday, and from 8:30 am to 2 pm on Sunday.
Original Article published by Tenele Conway on Region Canberra.
