They say that when one door closes, another opens – and that’s exactly what’s happened for some of the team behind La Pantera. The shutters may have come down on the innovative and proudly unauthentic taco restaurant late last year, but staff members soon moved on to a new venture. In premises previously occupied by the Trade Street Café, Pori (Welsh for ‘graze’) is geared towards brunches and lunches, and has an alcohol licence.
Its location, tucked away behind Cardiff Central, initially seems like a curse rather than a blessing – we stumble across it while hunting out somewhere for a bite with friends before they catch a train. But such is the scale of development in the vicinity, especially the new tower blocks constructed on the old Brains Brewery site, that it becomes obvious why securing a table can sometimes be a challenge, even in relatively large premises. The Sunday morning clientele could have been airlifted straight out of Pontcanna, and Trade Street (which I once knew only for the Enterprise car rental outlet, long gone) also now boasts the second branch of trendy local pie shop Donald’s. It’s like watching gentrification in real time.
Peruse the menu and the obvious choice is right there at the top. Fry-ups are ten a penny, so it shouldn’t be hard to set your offering apart – yet so few places genuinely do. The Full Pori, however, is a cut above, fully warranting the £14 price tag. Smoked bacon, vine tomatoes, a good-quality peppery sausage and a sourdough toast plinth for your fried egg are among the hallmarks of a high-end brunch, but Pori’s version also boasts a beautifully crispy block of hash brown, delightfully honking confit garlic mushrooms and a ramekin of homemade beans with a twinge of chilli – topped with torched rarebit, if you want (and believe me, you do). Throw in a couple of gooey black pudding bon bons on the side and you’ve got one of Cardiff’s finest brunches.
Vegetarians often have to settle for ‘sausages’ with the consistency of cardboard and other such pale imitations, but at Pori, the substitutes that come as part of the Full Vori are grilled halloumi – which does the bacon’s job of delivering the salty hit that any hangover craves – and a pot of creamy spinach and leeks.
Should you be affronted at the idea of the constituent items of your breakfast being arranged horizontally on your plate, I’m informed by a companion that the Stack is a winner. It certainly looks the part: sausage, bacon, fried egg and halloumi layered up vertically, doused with hollandaise sauce and sandwiched between two pillowy pancakes, crowned with a dollop of that rarebit for added decadence.
A return visit on a wet Friday lunchtime proves less positive – partly due to not booking ahead, partly because of ingredients shortages and short staffing. They’ve run out of pastrami, which rules out a Reuben, so three of us order the steak sandwich: medium rare grilled bavette with melted gouda, rocket and caramelised onion chutney. A sure-fire winner, though it would have benefitted from a few leaves on the side, as would the fried chicken option – which does contain fries, Greek gyros style, as well as aioli, mozzarella, and comes with a pot of gravy for dunking, but rates only as average in comparison to specialist chicken joints.
Service is slow – more of an issue on a workday lunchtime than a Sunday morning – but the cheery duo are doing their best to meet the demand. We’re compensated to the tune of 20% off the whole bill. So there’s the lesson: reserve a table in advance rather than rolling up on spec, choose the Full Pori/Vori and prepare to be wowed.
Pori, Trade Street, Cardiff. Info: Instagram
words and photos BEN WOOLHEAD
