I first heard of CassellBella’s Bakery & Cafe in the local vegan community. People were talking about the vegan pizzas and other options on the menu so I made a note to go there with the family for our next pizza day. The vegan menu is fairly recent and includes pizzas, savoury baked goods and some sweet treats.

We were warmly welcomed by the owner and staff and they were very helpful with the menu. I often like to talk to an owner about their vegan options and I could see that at CassellBella’s they really do try to provide well thought out vegan options, going as far as to plan for house made cashew based cheeses.

The cafe has some hot food displays and there were lots of vegan options. Shown below are the rice stuffed mushrooms (these were huge), two varieties of quiche and lots of pasties. A sign listed the pasty flavours: black bean and sweet potato, traditional mixed vegetables, curry lentil and vegetables, broccoli chickpeas and rice, Italian risotto and mixed vegie g.f. pasty (which I am assuming is the gluten free vegan option). I was impressed at how many flavour options there were:

The family opted for pizza on our first visit and I went with the curry lentil vegetable pasty. The pastry is house made too. My pasty was very filling, full of lentils and a bit of heat. A good hearty size and I was just able to finish the salad:

I was thinking how much I would have liked to try some pizza, when the staff came over to us and shared some of their garlic and chilli pizza. The pizza sauces, including the chilli sauce shown here, are all made in the cafe. The pizza was pretty good (and pretty spicy!):

I bought one of the quiches to take home and cook the next day (this photo is before I cooked it, I’m very fussy about pastry so I wanted to brown this more on the bottom and sides). The toppping was pretty good on this and it’s unfortunate I can’t remember what was in it!

On our second visit, we all got pizza for lunch. I chose the vegan supreme (13 inch size, about $19 I think). There was a good amount of the toppings and pizza sauce base (though husband thought there was too much sauce). We were able to take our leftovers home which was definitely needed:

There are also a few vegan sweet treats. On our first visit the owner kindly gave us a red velvet cupcake which was very nice but there’s no photo. On our second visit there was a vegan fruit slice in the display. There’s also a sandwich bar so you can get a sandwich freshly made with your choice of fillings.

It’s great to see yet another cafe widely advertising their vegan options– you certainly can’t miss CassellBella’s if you’re walking past or across the road! A blackboard out the front proudly displays vegan pizza offers. I’m keen to see what else they come up with.

CassellBella’s Cafe and Bakery

371A High Street, Northcote

http://www.facebook.com/cassellbellasbakerycafe/