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Sprout Wholefood Cafe and Grocer

Jacqui Taffel

Family-friendly: Sprout Wholefood Cafe and Grocer.
Family-friendly: Sprout Wholefood Cafe and Grocer.Lidia Nikonova

Contemporary

At a post-game brunch, after the under-six team goes down 10-5, the dads are reliving their childhood football glory. One recalls lightning dashes down the sidelines. The other demonstrates how he used to pretend to be a boat, sailing around the pitch. Points for creativity.

We are at Sprout Wholefood Cafe, sitting on the back verandah where families tend to congregate. Couples sit out front at the wooden cube tables on the pavement, and inside is anyone's domain. Our children have disappeared into the cubby house in the grassy backyard, where parents with babies spread picnic blankets. A garden bed is soon to be transformed into a vegie patch, watered by rainwater tanks and enriched by compost bins.

It's a busy Saturday morning and we take a while to figure out our order, but once it is taken, the food arrives with speedy efficiency. The kids suddenly materialise to devour a boiled egg with sourdough toast soldiers, and buckwheat pancakes with ice-cream. Not just any old ice-cream, but a scoop of Booza vanilla, sweet, creamy and divine. I have to battle for a taste. The pancakes are good too, light and slim with crispy edges. The grown-up version, two pancakes under a pile of fresh fruit and cashew cream, is a hit with the breakfast crowd, even without the ice-cream.

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Buckwheat pancakes with fruit.
Buckwheat pancakes with fruit.Lidia Nikonova

Sprout manages to negotiate the tricky balancing act of serving tremendously healthy food that tastes really good. The cashew cream, made from raw blended nuts, doesn't taste much of cashews but somehow unites the pancakes and fruit perfectly. The super green toast is two slices of sourdough spread with goat's curd, topped with chunks of avocado and Sprout's "super green" pesto of kale, basil, mint, raw almonds and lemon olive oil, all crunchy and zesty. The bacon and egg roll with Atticus and Max tomato relish, rocket and aioli is declared amazing by pretendy-sail-boat dad.

Eggs on toast are the only let-down. The eggs are perfectly poached, with bright orange yolks, but they roll around on their sourdough slabs, desperate for some company – a few slices of avocado or some roast tomato would do it.

My personal highlight turns out to be a juice. Suspicious of any drink with kale in it, I take a deep breath and order the Alive concoction of cucumber, celery, apple, kale and lemon. I cautiously request a kid's size, but on the first sip, wish I had an adult serve. It's a frothy green marvel of sweet, tart freshness, so healthy it hurts. The coffee is good too; the Herbie Hancock blend from Ed Cutcliffe's Little Marionette. The Tippity Tea is new from Ed's brother Andrew, and their uncle Pete provides Sprout's honey.

Alive juice.
Alive juice.Lidia Nikonova
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Sprout is also a family affair, owned by Joe Melhem and his cousin Chris Ayoub, managed by Ayoub's wife Karyn Macintosh. Melham’s daughter Tiahn works here, and his wife Ty runs the Xtend Barre studio upstairs. Ayoub, a builder, did the fitout, including the small grocery store next door, selling more good stuff, from eggs to canned beans to toothpaste and cosmetics.

Next time I come to Sprout for a juice fix, I might pluck up the courage to try one of the sweets from the front counter, maybe the avocado and cacao raw cheesecake, or a paleo choc-chip cookie. No kale brownies, what a pity. 

THE LOWDOWN
THE PICKS BUCKWHEAT PANCAKES, BACON AND EGG ROLL, ALIVE JUICE
THE COFFEE LITTLE MARIONETTE
THE LOOK AIRY AND LIGHT
THE SERVICE EFFICIENT AND HELPFUL

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