Amore Bodega brings homestyle cooking, lunch boxes and honest food to Southport
Nothing, and we mean nothing, beats a home-cooked meal – especially when someone else cooks it for you. Most of us will have very fond memories of the aromas from our grandmother’s kitchens and the belly-warming effects of our mother’s dinners when we were young – but let’s be honest, we’re all pretty time poor these days, so while we may have good intentions of creating nutritious, hearty meals at home, we’re either too darn busy or just don’t have the skills. If you fall into either of those categories, then you need Amore Bodega in your life, stat.
Joanna MacLellan has been selling her delicious take-home meals at the Marina Mirage markets every single Saturday for the past four years – each week the menu changes, and each week she sells out of absolutely everything. After constant pestering from her growing number of once-a-week customers, Joanna recently took the plunge and opened Amore Bodega under the H20 tower in Southport, allowing longstanding and new customers to stock up on her delightful homestyle meals on the regular. At the new space you’ll find fridges full of Joanna’s weekly creations – from Mamma Jo’s Jewish Chicken soup to the hearty Italian wagyu beef stufato, and maple-glazed walnut-crusted pork loin with cider-glazed pears. There’s also salads, frittatas, desserts, yoghurts (regular and vegan), paleo meals and more – all there waiting for you to take home. Every single thing you see, from the soups to the tubs of hommus and the vanilla-bean coconut-milk vegan yoghurt, is made from scratch – a lot of it is gluten free and there’s not an ounce of refined sugar in sight.
Amore Bodega is as much a cafe as it is a dispensary for delicious take-home meals – you can take a seat in the sunshine overlooking the Broadwater and sip an organic coffee while you nibble on the housemade cakes and slices. Though, it’s the lunch boxes that are really creating a stir. For $10 you’ll get a meal, a sweet treat and a bottle of water – but you’d better be hungry. We’re talking meals like a continental sausage in a warm toasted bun with coleslaw and potato salad, a big-as-your-head Reuben roll with house corned beef, potato salad and aged cheddar atop a soft damper roll, and a roasted-vegetable tart with a grana padano and fetta crumble and a rustic salad. Yep, it’s helluva lot of bang for your ten bucks. The lunch boxes rotate daily and the take-home meals will rotate weekly, with both menus dependant on two things – what local produce is best at the time and, well, whatever Joanna feels like cooking for you. What a woman!
Head to our Stumble Guide for opening hours and location.
The Stumble Guide is our comprehensive Gold Coast dining guide with more than 870 places to eat, drink, shop and play.
