Written by Chris Fellini with photography by Ellie Kay
Sitting in Café Stella, I’m reminded of the cafes in San Francisco. This comes as no surprise since the owners, Stella and Mariusz Pomianek, originally hail from the Bay Area. Work is what brought them to Norfolk, but when Pomianek’s husband was laid off they needed a backup plan.
Café Stella was born of the desire to bring that Bay Area style to Norfolk. Pomianek’s husband runs the coffee program, highlighted by the house-roasted coffee and specialties like nitro coffee and turbo cola. Pomianek runs the kitchen, as well as the growing retail space she utilizes for her design business.
When they started out, she tells me that they only had a few pastries. Today the menu has expanded to include substantial breakfast dishes, as well as lunch and dinner items. Pomianek’s interest in baking goes back to her days in the corporate world.
“After a stressful day, I’d bake a pie at two in the morning,” she says as I savor one of her lemon passion fruit bars. The lemon bar is standard fare, but the edition of passion fruit elevates it and adds a tropical flavor. The whole thing is delicious yet simple, which could be said of the rest of the menu.
The brown rice bowl is healthy comfort food, with pan-roasted vegetables complimenting the seared salmon. The salmon exterior is very crisp yet melt- in-your-mouth tender within,resulting in a pleasing texture. The miso-sesame drizzle adds the right amount of acidity, and the rice serves as the perfect background noise. The pork adobo, too, is an understated dish. The pork is slow roasted to perfection. It comes in a French baguette, similar to a bahn mi. Pomianek uses fresh vegetables instead of pickled, which add a refreshing crispness, but the peppery nature of the arugula threatens to overthrow the balance of spices in the pork. The sandwich exemplifies Asian fusion cuisine, combining Filipino and Vietnamese traditions.
While Pomianek refused to let me call her the chef, she did settle for baker. “I run a restaurant, and I happen to be behind each dish, but I’m no chef,” she tells me. Pomianek is self-taught, but she has her share of chefs she looks to for inspiration. Being from the Bay Area, I wasn’t surprised that she mentioned Alice Waters. Another Bay Area chef Pomianek admires is Elizabeth Falkner, world renowned for her pastry creations. Locally, she’s a big fan of Patrick Evans-Hylton and the feeling is mutual. Several of Pomianek’s recipes appeared in Evans-Hylton’s book, Dishing Up Virginia.
Café Stella definitely has West Coast flavor and high-class coffee. The food is simple and the changing menu keeps things exciting. Though Pomianek wants to give more attention to the design side, hopefully that doesn’t keep her out of the kitchen-even if it’s just to bake a late night pie.
Cafe Stella Hours: M-F 6:30AM-10PM Sat. 8pm-10PM, Sun. 9AM-10PM
Address: 1907 Colonial Ave Norfolk
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