If you’ve ever worked at Circular Quay, you’ll know how difficult it is to get a healthy lunch during the day. There’s always Quay, Bennelong, Café Sydney and Pei Modern, but what about the cheap eats? The best one we know is Bun Me (delicious, hot, warming cups of pho) but we all know where everyone ends up in these parts: Maccas.
But not any more. Urban Orchard is the new healthy eatery from Gabrielle Levette, an ex-lawyer who got sick and tired of never being able to find healthy eats while she was at work. So she put down her books and found a solution: creating a business that could serve the worker bees with healthy, nutritious and ethical food, at a price they could afford.
Levette only sources her produce from respected growers, producers and suppliers who share her ethical values – sustainable farming and reducing food’s eco footprint.
Dishes will include brekky buckwheat pancakes with vanilla ricotta and blueberries, and delicious (but usually very unhealthy) Japanese pancake, okonomiyaki, which is stuffed with kale, sweet potato, cabbage and optional additions like poached salmon, nitrate-free bacon or smashed egg.
For lunch you’re looking at sprouted blue lentil salad with toasty eggplant, haloumi and nuts, or go for the raw slaw with pulled pork, beetroot and avocado-spiked mayo.
At the beginning, these guys will only be open during the day, but soon they'll be open at dinnertime too.
They are part of the new, extensive Gateway Sydney restaurant complex that will rejuvenate Circular Quay’s dining culture, and includes Gelato Messina and Neil Perry’s Burger Project. It’s about time a place came along like this.
Urban Orchard opens its doors on Thursday September 1.