Healthy eats in Sydney that don't suck

What to order: Bedouin bowl 

Step aside salad, Buddha bowls reign supreme at this Inner West wholefood café. As the name implies, you’ll find eight plant-based bowls for lunch, which are equal parts healthy and delicious. The classic Buddha bowl is a colour bomb of tomato quinoa passata, roasted sweet potato, kale salad, black-brown rice, sauerkraut and a duo of carrot and beetroot hummus. However, it’s the warm falafel waffles in the Bedouin bowl with creamy herbed tahini dressing that are worth visiting for.

What to order: poke bowl

How it works at Fishbowl is you choose your base – cabbage, brown rice, glass noodles – and your preferred protein, be it cubes of raw salmon, tuna, kingfish, or tofu. Then, like any salad bar, you build from there with things like pickled ginger, bulkier veggies or seaweed. You also get a choice of dressing and a crunchy item for a little extra texture to your bowl.

What to order: Sarah's Day whole bowl

This Bondi gem will make you ridiculously excited to eat healthily. We're talking seared salmon poke bowls, green goodness salads and the cult favourite Sarah's Day whole bowl. Each dish is packed to the brim with greens, veggies, your protein of choice and a healthy range of dressings. Complete your health kick with a turmeric cleansing shot or a paleo muffin.

What to order: blue magic bowl

Fuel up on nature’s bounty with Soul Bowl’s 100 per cent raw, vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar-free açai, smoothies or nice creams. Along with the original açai bowl, there are colourful, seasonal specials featuring activated charcoal and blue spirulina, or savoury poke bowls with salmon and tofu.

What to order: the mixed plates

This Egyptian diner puts a lot of care into assembling its colourful mixed plates, which are full of fresh and flavourful tidbits. They pair the meats or falafel with garlic paste, tahini, a little fatoush salad, Pantone-coloured pickles and an eggplant and capsicum melange. Soft folds of flat bread and a cumin-spiced fresh salsa are the final additions to this all-star flavour cast. 

What to order: cauliflower rice shakshouka

Start the day with a splash of colour and a side of sustainability at Girdlers. This tropical café is like a wellness retreat, but for food, with fluffy buckwheat, banana and coconut pancakes; a gluten-free cauliflower rice shakshouka; and a fresh Asian-style soul salad with tofu or grilled chicken.

What to order: build your own bowl

Even though the menu hinges on two dishes – poke and momos – the combinations for each are countless. You pick your protein (salmon, kingfish, tuna or tofu) base (cabbage, rice, soba noodles or half and half), and five toppings – go wild with shredded nori, jalapeños, pickled ginger, radish and avo.

What to order: real food pancakes

Manly’s answer to organic, healthy and sustainable food is found at Ruby Lane. Wellness warriors are spoilt for choice with superfood banana bread; a triple stack of ‘real food pancakes’ topped with seasonal fruit, coconut yogurt, maca crumble and velvety cacao sauce; or a smash ’n’ hash sweet potato fritter with corn salsa, eggs, avo and chimichurri sauce.

What to order: chicken satay salad

"Honest food full of flavour” is what you can expect at this nature-inspired café in the industrial hot spot of Alexandria. Our top pick is the chicken satay salad where you can kiss dreary leaves of wilted lettuce goodbye and instead welcome free range chicken breast marinated in a peanut sauce, a coconut drizzle, pear and jasmine rice. 

What to order: 24-hour bone broth

Bare Wholefoods has been stripping meals back to basics with its 24-hour bone broth and seasonal, nourish bowls since 2015. Tuck yourself in at one of Bare’s intimate tables for a low-key brekkie with house-baked fruit loaf or a plant protein smoothie bowl. Alternatively, swing by for a quick workweek lunch where you can choose between a mixed cress and cabbage bowl; a ramen noodle and baby kale salad; or a mixed cress and sweet potato hummus bowl.

What to order: pea pancakes

Porch and Parlour struck a chord with the Bondi crowd when it opened in 2010 and has since become a hot spot for healthy food hunters in Sydney. Walk up from the beach for a cold fix green juice or raw cacao and hemp seed shake, and grab a chia seed bowl or seasonal fruit granola to go. Their signature pea pancakes have reached cult status among regulars and the falafel salad bowl aligns with the clean lifestyle of the locals.

What to order: kale and saltbush gyoza

You may know Yulli’s for its smashable beers, but the brewery also has a restaurant in Surry Hills serving well-executed vegetarian fare. Everything is designed to share and draws inspiration from two of the world’s healthiest cuisines, South-East Asian and Mediterranean. Plates range from crispy tofu papaya salad and stuffed roast capsicums to fresh san choy bow and kale and saltbush gyoza.

What to order: fried brown rice bowl

Long time favourite for Marrickville vegetarians and vegans is Two Chaps, an open-plan eatery serving up delicious plant-based dishes that are so good you won't miss the meat. The menu changes seasonally but there's always a chef special salad bowl of local produce on offer.

What to order: market fish 

This neighbourhood fish counter doesn’t serve your average greasy, newspaper-wrapped fish and chips. You’re in control so can take the healthier route with grilled fish and all the greens. Start by picking a main from snapper, salmon or barramundi, then tack on a condiment and a side. These are less along the lines of floury chips and more in the vein of a charred broccolini, butter lettuce with house vinaigrette, or pearl barley with yogurt dressing. 

What to order: green pea fritters

This is Darlinghurst's go-to café for wholesome bowls, ethical proteins and velvety flat whites. You’ll feel nourished from the inside out after eating Wilde and Co’s kimchi and poached chicken bowl with cauliflower rice; or the raw rainbow salad featuring Noni’s charcoal quinoa bread. But we can’t go past their crunchy green pea fritters with baby beet pickles and a secret organic coconut sauce.

What to order: the lunchtime special

There are a few ways to play at Kitchen by Mike, but your best bet is a mixed plate with two seasonal salads and a protein. Struggle between ordering the slow-cooked pork shoulder with chimichurri or the grilled mackerel fillets in Mexican spices. You can also get a takeaway, but being sustainably minded folk, you get a discount if you have a reusable lunchbox. 

What to order: tahini bowl

OK, so the burger part of their equation isn't what you'd call healthy – but as the name suggests, Bowls & Burgers has a big selection of colourful, hearty bowls for lunch. With 17 suggested bowl choices on the menu, and the ability to craft your own, the options are pretty much endless. They’ve got Mexican and burrito bowls, Japanese-style miso and also teriyaki bowls, falafel bowls, risotto bowls, Hungarian bowls with slow-cooked beef goulash – and even butter chicken bowls. They’re all big, hearty, colourful meals made from super-fresh, well-seasoned ingredients. A great balanced lunch in one dish.

What to order: soba noodle salad

This Marrickville wholefood café places a big emphasis on locally sourced food, with coconut yoghurt from just down the road at Coco Tribe, butter from Tempe's Pepe Saya and wild-grown tea by Little Wildling Co. Order a range of colourful bowls like the soba noodle salad or the miso roasted pumpkin donburi, or grab an acai smoothie to go.

What to order: DIY bowl

If the name doesn’t quite give it away, Daily Greens is a health-forward eatery where you can get your daily dose of two-and-five from the early morning to the early evening, seven days a week. Their wholefood ethos comes through loud and clear whether you’re here for avo toast with roasted nori and cold-pressed juice, or a DIY bowl with all the GF, DF, V and VG bells and whistles.

What to order: Mexican veggie burgers

Pilgrims' second outpost in Cronulla is a mecca for health-conscious foodies with all-day breakfast including açai bowls, corn fritters, and pesto sourdough with avocado and roasted mushrooms. It’s worth the pilgrimage on weekends for their Mexican-inflected lunch menu where the veggie burgers are so packed full of fresh produce, it’s hard to get your mouth around them.