Dining review: The Nook Wholefoods in Elanora Heights

The Nook has put Elanora Heights on the cafe map with its brand of super healthy food.

Acai bowl at The Nook.

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The humble latte is no longer a milky coffee-based drink. Latte lovers can enjoy them turbocharged with turmeric and flavoured with almond milk and mushroom powder.

If you order the reishi latte at The Nook, you’ll get not just one mushroom, you’ll get a double hit of funghi. This latte has both powdered reishi and chaga mushrooms, vanilla, mesquite (a superfood flavours packed with vitamins, fibre and antioxidants) and honey-steeped in homemade almond milk.

Healthy eating: Mexican baked eggs, Nourish bowl, smashed avocado on toast with a turmeric latte. Heights

But this isn’t one of those uber healthy cafes in Surry Hills or Bondi, The Nook Wholefoods is a little cafe smack-bang in the middle of Elanora Heights.

Don’t think of reishi latte as mushroom soup, it’s definitely not. Cafe owner Adam Cummings says more like a chai, but it’s also earthy and soul-warming and full of antioxidants.

If it’s all a bit too hippy-dippy, you can add a shot of caffeine, or just forget the lot and stick to coffee from Barrel One, a local boutique roaster.

Counter productive: cafe action at The Nook

These beans are organic and direct trade so they come straight from the farmers on Vanuatu’s Tanna Island.

It’s the way Cummings and his partner Carla Haining like to do things.

As well as the health food creed, the menu is dedicated to wellbeing, food as medicine and conscious consumption, these foodies support local businesses. You’ll find herbs from an organic farm in Ingleside in the salsa verde, sourdough bread from Berkelo in Brookvale and raw treats from D-Vine by Nature. And I like that.

Mexican Baked eggs The Nooks is a buzzy little cafe in Elanora Heights

And I like the fact that it’s not overly-zealous. preachy and hard line. There is no refined sugar, but you wouldn’t really notice it. Of course, there are the new-wave cafe staples like breakfast bowls brimming with acai, or chia pudding and smashed avo on toast. But there’s also old favourites like the bacon and egg roll on the all-day menu. The Nookie is $11 and comes with nitrate-free bacon and basil-scrambled eggs, rocket, cheese, homemade aioli and tomato relish served on a toasted wholemeal bun.

Taken to the next level, the free-range pulled pork roll becomes super trendy and ideal for lunch. It’s topped with ginger and turmeric sauerkraut, rocket, aoili and chipotle. Avocado is a $2 add-on.

Fermented, fashionable and now so quintessentially suburban.

The Nook has a menu full of healthy options.

Twitter @beverley_hudec

Essentials

The Nook Wholefoods

2/69 Kalang Rd, Elanora Heights

Open: Seven days, 7am-3.30pm, Monday-Friday; 7am-1.30pm, Saturday; 8am-2pm, Sunday

Coffee: Barrel One Coffee Roasters

Go for: Zucchini, corn and haloumi fritters with avocado, rocket and salsa verde; $17, pulled pork and turmeric sauerkraut; $15 and hyper-local produce.

Vibe: Health by stealth

Bottom line: $46.10