BREAKFAST:
Grounds of Alexandria, Alexandria
Top Dish: The Healthy Plate
Rise and shine with The Grounds gluten free granola, vanilla bean organic yoghurt, fresh mixed seasonal berries, grapes, rambutan, selected nuts, dried organic mango crisps, fresh mango and a kale juice shot. It’s the platter of dreams.
LUNCH:
Top Dish: Perfect Circle Salad
Hands down the best salad i’ve ever eaten: a selection of raw + fermented salads, activated nut pesto, cashew cheese, tahini cream, green leaves + activated linseed crackers. You can literally feel your insides glowing. Theres also a yoga studio attached to you can totally bliss out. Take a seat in the leafy courtyard and order the daily changing kombucha.
DINNER:
Top Dish: Steamed trevalla, fregola, zucchini and broad beans.
Matt Moran heads up this delightful garden-restaurant. Food is locally sourced, in season and from the Chef’s own family farm (Matt Moran) or the onsite veggie patch.
SWEET TREATS:
Top Dish: White Chocolate + Salted Caramel Banoffee
I don’t know how this is legal. Aside form the insanely indulgent raw cakes on offer, they also offer Australia's first Raw High Tea, in the event you were hoping for one hell of a healthy food coma.
SHOPPING:
- Bondi Farmers Market, Bondi Public School Grounds.
- About Life (5 locations) - whole foods market and health food store carrying everything from organic frozen berries (by the scoop) to house-made caramel slices (also available in party-size slabs), kale pesto, and everything else that makes you drool. Check out the Nourishment Bar for fresh daily salads catering for every dietary requirement known to man.
- The Sydney Morning Herald Growers' Market Pyrmont- sadly this is only on the first Saturday of every month (wish it was weekly!) but it holds the top producers across NSW, set on the Sydney Harbour. Find whatever has been freshly harvested (think hairloom carrots, oriental mushrooms and baby leeks) plus delicious coffee from Campos and fresh bread from The Bread and Butter Project. The perfect way to start your weekend: grab your brekkie on the way round,and sit by the warf looking out to the harbour bridge. There’s nothing like it.
ACTIVITIES:
- Hom Yoga, Darlinghurst- a beautiful bight-filled studio right next to the city with an excellent timetable of both energetic and calming yoga styles on offer.
- Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk- the perfect walk for on a summers day. Stretching across 6km of gorgeous coastline, you can take in the beautiful views and escape the city madness. If you’re feeling energetic, join the hoards of runners that make this trip every weekend.
- Scenic Cycle, Sydney- an indoor cycling studio that has revolutionized gruelling spin classes. Cycle the globe in your lunch hour with mind-blowing HD technology.
BEAUTY: (ORGANIC SPAS, MASSAGE, FACIALS, NAIL/HAIR SALONS):
- Best massage: Chakra Healing Massage, Shangri La
This unique and meditative ritual brings the bodies’ seven main chakras into alignment through fluid combinations of massage, healing crystals and guided meditation. This experience leaves you feeling calm and in a state of harmony.
- Best Facial: Uspa, Sydney
A bespoke treatment designed by your therapist who chooses highly active plant extracts to give you a glowing complexion, naturally. It runs like this; a welcoming back massage, a deep cleanse, exfoliation, masks, cell therapy and a therapeutic face and scalp massage, followed by an eye contour wrap to take care of the delicate eye area and hydration treatment to nourish and protect. Seriously, you won’t recognise yourself.
- Best Hair Salon: RAW Anthony Nader, Surry Hills
Dividing his time between New York and Sydney Anthony Nader is an international hairdresser and editorial stylist (think Harpers Bazaar and Vogue) who has a pretty long waiting list at his salon in Surry Hills. As one of Australia’s most respected and in demand hair stylists, he has a flair for making you feel like a natural goddess. Needless to say you might want to prepare yourself for the bill, but don’t forget, it’s because you’re worth it.
