Heart & Soul Kitchen is a neighbourhood café on Waltham Road in Christchurch, home to gourmet toasties, handcrafted pies and pasties, and the stunning smell of Ristretto coffee. The current team took over in August 2021 — on a snowy day when the bread order never turned up — and have run it ever since with a simple philosophy: life is full of hurdles, and success is how you get over them. Walk in and you'll always be greeted with a smile, a cabinet of delicious delights and that unmistakable coffee aroma.
The counter covers all the comforting bases: gourmet toasties, in-house pies and pasties, a giant sausage roll for the truly hungry, club sammies on fluffy fresh bread, and a sweetie treatie for everyone to round things out. As the team puts it, they make a really good coffee — and they're proud of it.
Over five years in operation, Heart & Soul has grown well past the café counter into a full catering operation: workplace morning tea shouts, bespoke grazing tables and boxes, hot and cold canapés for cocktail evenings, and food carts or an onsite mobile kitchen that bring their gourmet toasties and handcrafted savouries to weddings, Christmas parties and big events. You'll also spot them at the Riccarton Sunday Market most Sundays. It's food from the heart to nourish your soul — without breaking your bank balance.
Heart & Soul Kitchen on Waltham Road has become one of those cafés locals claim as their own — a place where you're greeted with a smile, the cabinet is full of delicious delights, and the stunning smell of Ristretto coffee reaches the door before you do.
The current team took over in August 2021, on a day that was snowing and when the bread order never turned up. Rather than read it as a bad omen, they treated it as the first hurdle — because the firm belief here is that life is full of hurdles, and success is how you get over them. That philosophy still shapes the welcome today. As the team puts it, this is their home, and they're proud to bring you food from the heart to nourish your soul.
The heart of the menu is simple food done generously. Gourmet toasties lead the charge, followed closely by handcrafted pies and pasties made in-house. The giant sausage roll has earned its own following — the team will happily tell you that if a giant sausage roll is your thing, they've got you covered — while the club sammie, stacked on fluffy fresh bread, is the sandwich regulars keep coming back for.
There's also a rotating sweetie treatie selection, because there's a sweetie treatie here for everyone, and it all pairs naturally with the coffee. They make no secret of it: they make a really good coffee.
Over their five years in operation, Heart & Soul Kitchen has stretched well past the café counter. Work shouts are a house specialty — morning tea spreads so popular the team jokes customers ring back to book more and tell all their friends about them. Nothing says 'I see you' like a bellyful of Heart & Soul goodies, and their fresh club sammies are the stuff of workplace dreams.
For bigger moments there are grazing tables — statement pieces versatile enough to follow a wedding ceremony or feed a large conference. Each one is bespoke and customisable, and the team will work to your budget to help stretch your dollar. Grazing boxes do the honours for a hubby's 40th, with tasty fresh sammies to start and their all-time favourite cheese and onion savouries and sausage roll selection brought out later. Cocktail evenings get the canapé treatment, from smoked salmon blinis to mini roast beef toasts, with hot and cold selections available.
For a work Christmas party, picture a slow-cooked meat selection with beautiful seasonal salads and fluffy bread rolls, plus a couple of grazing boxes spread around — Bob's your uncle, everyone's fed. And for events further afield, their food carts roll out gourmet toasties and handcrafted pies and pasties, or the team will set up an onsite mobile kitchen to cater large events, from Christmas parties to weddings.
The café itself trades Monday to Friday, 7am to 2pm, at 204 Waltham Road in Christchurch. Come the weekend, keep an eye out at the markets — they pop up at the Riccarton Sunday Market at Riccarton Racecourse most Sundays, and appear at events like The Goode Market at Mainland Stadium Rangiora and the Methven Glow Festival at McLeans Island.
To lock in a shout, a grazing table or an event cart, ring 03 374 9549, text 027 536 5169, or email [email protected].
Part of it is the food — pies with genuine handmade character, toasties with gourmet ambition, coffee worth the trip. Part of it is the people: a team that treats hurdles as things to get over and customers as guests in their home. And part of it, they'd tell you themselves, is that all of this comes without breaking your bank balance. Whether it's a quick weekday lunch, a morning tea shout for the crew, or a grazing table for mums turning 70 — complete with fresh sammies, asparagus rolls and handcrafted savouries and sweets — the possibilities, as the team likes to say, really are endless.