The Best Healthy Eating Spots in Auckland
Better living, everyone.
The Best Healthy Eating Spots in Auckland
Better living, everyone.
The new year has rolled in and the endless hangover that was 2017 has been finally put to bed. Your resolutions have been written down, some already broken, but nevertheless this new year is your year. Your year to attain the glad wrap lady's unattainable 'better living' she pleasantly wishes upon everyone. To buy better. To live better. To be better.
We too hope your 2018 is better than your 2017, so here at Concrete Playground we hope to help you get to that state of better through maybe addressing one the most common New Year goals in the world: your health. In doing so we've found the tastiest healthy cafés in Auckland to help tick off at least one of those goals of self-betterment. Better living, everyone.
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Yeshe Dawa’s Freedom Loaf is something of a legend in the Auckland brunching scene. What started as a side project to create an alternative to wheat based bread for gluten and dairy dietary requirements, can now be found at practically every first-rate eatery in the city, and beyond. The Midnight Baker toast haven at 218 Dominion Road is an establishment where you can buy the nutrient dense Freedom Loaf and enjoy a menu free of gluten, wheat, dairy. It’s also 95% vegan and refined sugar free.
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Everything The Raw Kitchen makes is vegan, dairy free and gluten free, which is good news for those tired of the fussy label and of asking too many questions. It’s also nice to feel that one can have a café that is an absolute health haven — you can order anything without even the slightest prospect of post-meal guilt. In fact, it’s so healthy that you almost feel wholesome just for entering through the shop door. It’s everything you want it to be as a healthy café.
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Bowl and Arrow is one of Auckland’s newer evangelists of good vibes and wholesome living. Selling a variety of smoothie bowls and healthy porridges, the café serves breakfasts or lunches (eat-in, takeaway or even delivered straight to your office) that are a healthy treat. The bright-eyed smoothie bowl café venture, spearheaded by Hannah and Leisha, is completely sugar, dairy and mostly gluten free, and surprisingly well priced — it is a pleasant café that I wouldn’t mind stopping into if I was in the neighbourhood and in need of a chirpy café and a refreshing meal.
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Although Wise Cicada’s mains have crept up in price over the years a little bit too much, it would be a crime to not pay homage to Newmarket’s vegan café-supermarket institution. A little piece of advice from one of our reviewers though: “one does not simply ‘pop in’ to Wise Cicada. Rather, one lingers amongst the healthy folk and leaves with bags of cacao powder and gluten-free pasta one never knew they needed until right that moment.”
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This free-range rotisserie chicken, sandwich and salad café is perfect for those feeling a little peckish and in need of a health kick. There are three outposts of the organic restaurant in Auckland, including Ponsonby, Orakei Bay and Takapuna.
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Sip Kitchen preaches and delivers raw, organic, delicious goodness in liquid form. The smoothies are the perfect recovery drinks from workouts, hangovers, or even just a really emotional day. The bright and laid-back café is there for you.
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Little Bird Unbakery has had and will continue to have a cult following for years. One of the pioneers of the raw vegan movement in Auckland, Little Bird makes pretty tasty, guilt-free morsels that are always surprisingly filling. Any best of list wouldn’t be complete without the iconic Little Bird.
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Kingsland’s Greenleaf Organics is another healthy eatery that surprised us with its very reasonable price point. Breakfast options were anywhere from $7 to $15, while lunch was around the $14/15 mark with one $18 exception. The smoothie manufacturer-turned-café makes genuinely delicious food which might not be poached chicken and broccoli for lunch-level healthy, but will satisfy any dietician and your tastebuds.
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Misters is here to give CBD nine-to-fivers an easy, healthy takeaway option that isn’t oil with a side of food. Produce is local, completely gluten and dairy-free and all options are marked at very reasonable price points.
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Spearheaded by two food bloggers, Eleanor Ozich of Petite Kitchen and Hannah Horton of Health Yeah, Mondays is an easily likeable health circuit favourite. There is almost nothing not to like about the place — the ivy-lined outdoor sitting area is adorable, the smoothies are something else — I sometimes make a 20-minute drive across town just for the banana chocolate fudge smoothie (it’s actually healthy too, I swear) and the delicious yet healthy menu offerings. The only thing we don’t like about Mondays is that at some point you actually have to leave.