Dragonfly Cafe and Gardens - Ashland Oregon Restaurant

By Amanda Bolsinger
Correspondent
Ashland Daily Tidings

Already a new favorite restaurant for breakfast and lunch, the six-month-old Dragonfly is expanding to include dinner.

The restaurant is an extension of Cantina, a restaurant based in San Diego, but when Neil and Dee Clooney moved to Southern Oregon to open Dragonfly, they created a restaurant that is uniquely Ashland, with a variety of worldly flavors.

Dragonfly is a Latin-Asian restaurant, with dishes from each culture as well as choices that combine the two distinct flavors.

“We have a couple of dishes with eastern and Latin flavors but also a lot of different dishes,” Neil Clooney said. “Our food is healthy and light but not bland and boring. Everything has flavor.”

The breakfast menu boasts dishes like their trademark coconut French toast and the cantina croissant, a homemade croissant with scrambled eggs, cheese, tomatoes, and scallions served with rosemary potatoes.

Following the same flavors, the dinner menu has been built with dishes like the Buddha bowl, a bowl of lemon grass and coconut-milk broth with shitake mushrooms, noodles, vegetables and cilantro; the ahi wontons, seared ahi served with wonton crisps; and charbroiled chicken served Latin style, Asian style, dragon style and Isabel style, each with different sides.

Along with the new dinner menu and hours, the Clooneys have been making changes to the interior and exterior of the restaurant as well. In the rear of the restaurant is a garden that has been cleaned up and replanted to offer outdoor patio seating. Inside, the booths have been re-covered, new carpet has been laid and finishing touches around the restaurant have been completed to create a casual, comfortable ambience.

“We finished all the little things,” Neil Clooney said. “We were unfinished when we opened but we have evolved into a proper restaurant.”

Dragonfly isn’t finished evolving. The wine list with moderately priced white, rose, and red wines will soon be a small part of a full bar that the Clooneys plan to open this summer. Couches will be moved into the front lobby to create a comfortable seating space that will serve during daytime hours as a small coffee house and at night as a lounge and bar.

As the Dragonfly expands, it has been getting attention from more then just the usual breakfast crowd. The restaurant was recently featured in Joy Magazine, and Neil Clooney will host a segment on KTVL’s 5 p.m. news show on Thursday evenings beginning in July. In each segment, he will share a different recipe and show how to prepare it.

The restaurant is at 241 Hargadine St., below the Oregon Cabaret Theater. Dragonfly Cafe and Gardens is open 7 days a week, from 8 - 3 and from 5 till close.

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