A NEW Meditteranean cafe with a South African infusion has opened in Lymington.

Peter Bendon owns Babela’s, a brand new café serving a mixture of South African-style dishes and traditional café favourites.

The new café is also taking suppliers from popular stores like well-known bakery, Bakehouse 24.

Babela’s offers high-quality, locally roasted coffee, healthy breakfasts, hearty lunches, and a tempting selection of artisanal bread and pastries.

Speaking about the opening, Peter said: “We are so excited to bring our values of high-quality produce and an affordable price point. We have been working tirelessly on the refurb as well as constructing our menus to work with locally scoured products.

“At Babelas, we believe in the beauty of fresh, locally sourced ingredients and the art of crafting delicious meals with love and care. Our menu is a celebration of vibrant flavours, offering a range of dishes that cater to all tastes.

“Whether you're stopping by for a leisurely breakfast, a quick coffee break, or a wholesome lunch, you'll find something to delight your palate.

“It's all very Mediterranean cuisine, a very healthy breakfast party, lunches, a lot of nice salads and things like that, a few vegan options as well, to cater to all sides. We've also got our cakes and things that we're outsourcing from Bakehouse 24.

Peter added: “I've been working in hospitality for the last 10 years managing steakhouses, cafes, bars, and restaurants and it's always been my life goal to get the cafe on the go.

“We came up with the concept based off of the good food that we eat all the time out in South Africa where I grew up, and we kind of executed it and we've got a great chef on board who's really, really taken the concept and pushed it to another level.”

Talking about plans for the future, Peter said: “We are chatting with a few suppliers at the moment for wholesaling herbs and spices, particularly South African herbs and spices that will be stocked on our shelves inside.

“We’re also working on attaining a wine supplier to turn the café into a bar slowly.”

Babela’s is situated on Lymington High Street and opened on August 21.