Valentina Cafe - Brisbane

Ion is a destination restaurant that many aspire to visit. Having visited numerous coffee shops in Brisbane and overseas, I can confidently say that Ion ranks among the top ten in terms of coffee quality. The baristas consistently deliver perfectly extracted coffee at the right temperature. The wait staff are exceptional and the food is good, with generous portions and a touch of creativity on the menu. I recommend trying a Ristretto to experience the excellent coffee, and for breakfast, the Sour dough with avo, chorizo, and crispy bacon is a personal favorite. In the evening, the wood-fired pizzas and signature ribs are hard to resist. Ion's popularity among satisfied customers is a testament to its quality. If you're willing to travel 45 minutes to visit Ion, you won't be disappointed.

I remember coming to this café for breakfast when it was owned by someone else. I recently visited again for breakfast and sat on the pet-friendly deck. We ordered the corn fritters with avocado salsa. The fritters were decent but needed more spice for my liking - they were a bit bland. However, we enjoyed the salsa and the double shot flat whites were very good.

The café has delicious food and a pleasant atmosphere. A family of 4 can easily be satisfied with 2 pizzas cooked in their pizza oven. The coffee is also delicious. I will definitely return.

ION<br/ <br/ I’m yet to try the dinner menu, so the following review is specific to breakfast. For folks not familiar, this cute little cottage used to be known as Valentina Cafe, until a recent change of ownership where they curiously decided to name it after an electrically charged atomic particle. Ion Cafe, there’s still time for you to be a cation instead of an anion. Let me give you some tips, and I’ll start with the positive things about the cafe: I like the coffee, the sourdough, the balsamic glaze, they way the eggs are scrambled and the generous portions of crispy bacon, your quality glassware, your friendly and attentive staff, and the beautiful open deck and bar at the back. However, your music SUCKS. Every. Single. Time. I get that roughly 80% of the population likes Ed Sheeran et al. (God help me), but please, just occasionally change the genre of your music to something other than soppy ballardy pop rubbish. Now we need to talk about your issues with volume, capacity and proportion. I’m talking about your corn and zucchini fritters, one of your best breakfast offerings, blighted by a fundamental misuse of the above mathematical concepts. Firstly, you serve two wholesome, dense fritters which are very large, roughly 10cm in diameter and 3 cm tall, EACH (well, it appears that way). That’s a lot of fritter. Here’s the problem; they come with a teaspoon sized smear of guacamole, sour cream and salsa on only ONE of them atop a compacted bed of greens enough to feed a rabbit for a week. You don’t need to be a mathematical genius to realise why this is a very big problem. To save you the hassle, I’ve done the maths to solve your fritter problem: V π r2 h, (disclaimer: that’s radius squared as the stupid app doesn’t allow superscript) times that by two fritters and you have V ≈ 471.24, almost 500 cubic centimetres of frickin fritters and a stingy 20 50 mls of the other key ingredients culinary disaster. For the love of god, please fix this. I am sick of running out of condiments after the third bite. If it’s a cost issue, then just make the fritters a bit smaller so you can afford more avocado (I’m sure the average diner won’t notice they’re eating only 400 cubic centimetres of fritter instead of half a litre of the stuff). You have so much potential, Ion (no pun intended), the owner seems like a nice bloke, please don’t blow it. Mitchelton needs you!

Lovely cafe came here for breakfast on the weekend, and it was a great experience. The staff sung happy birthday to my partner which was a lovely and personable touch! Good food selection, beautiful location and seating out the back, would come back!