The Grounds of Alexandria, Alexandria – Rating: 22.5/25

The Grounds of Alexandria

Herb garden and outdoor seating

The factory site has been converted into a coffee roasting & education haven with café and sprawling outdoor area featuring vegetable, fruit & herb gardens and a chicken coop.  The almost complete pizza oven is also a very promising sign of things to come!

Fresh strawberries and blueberries

Freshly grown strawberries ($4) and blueberries ($8), lemonade ($5), ground granola ($15), tea and jams were some of the items on sale today.  Thankfully the sunbathed courtyard and gardens are the perfect place to sit back and relax (with a coffee) while you wait for your table.  Check the Facebook page for updates on when The Grounds Markets are on.

As for the café itself, there are some outside service tables but the interior has plenty of space and lots of comfortable seating.  The design is genius and gorgeous; I appreciated every intricacy.  Our waitress was also faultless – friendly, quick, funny and helpful.

Flat white

Espresso

Aeropress coffee

With roasting, barrista and coffee education classes, you would think they know a little bit about beans.  Very little to fault with any of our drinks.  Our waitress informed us that last Saturday they went through about 25kg of beans!  Ristretto, espresso or long blacks are $3.50 while macchiato, piccolo, latte, flat white or cappuccino are $3.50 for small or $4 for large.  The Aeropress coffee I had uses a hand-plunged device to filter the coffee and results in a low acid, outstanding cup.

Freshly squeezed orange juice

Freshly squeezed apple juice

Freshly squeezed juices ($7) depend on what’s available on the day.  We tried both of this weekend’s offerings and enjoyed every drop.

There is also a very special selection of organic teas ($4) so tea drinkers can rejoice!

Turkish style eggs

The menu is split into breakfast (until 11:30am), brunch (from 12pm) and lunch (from 12pm).  There is not a vast difference between the breakfast and brunch menus but you will miss out on some dishes if you arrive at twelve (such as the French toast with roasted rhubarb & lemon marscapone, $13 or the bacon & egg roll with spicy tomato relish, $9).

The Turkish style eggs ($16) is based on a tomato sauce with cannellini beans, spinach and labneh.  The poached eggs are topped with pistachios.  Overall a superb combination of flavours with no ingredient too overpowering.  The eggs were only slightly runny so if you prefer them softer, mention it.

The Grounds breakfast board

The Grounds breakfast board

Two of my guests today enjoyed the Grounds breakfast board ($19) which comes with double smoked ham, avocado, heirloom tomatoes, Persian feta, poached eggs, housemade pesto and toasted sourdough (from Luxe Bakery judging by the boxes I saw).  One of them added sausages ($4.50).  Combine your own flavours or enjoy them separately, the breakfast board is perfect to share the ingredients around and we found everything to be very fresh.  The pesto particularly was a hit.

Rolled eggs with crispy quinoa

The rolled eggs with crispy quinoa ($16) came with eggs that weren’t as soft as we thought they would be after reading the menu.  They rest on a bed of asparagus, oven roasted tomatoes and truffle oil.  The crunchy quinoa was an unusual twist but it works well.

Croque monsieur

This was a very delicious croque monsieur ($15) with plenty of cheese, some of which had crisped on the outside of the sandwhich while it had been frying (deletable)!  Served alongside a very fresh salad with light balsamic (and a tad too much salt) I could have eaten another one of these!

Wagon wheels, strawberry tart, chocolate tart

Cherry Danish and almond & orange tart

With so many tarts, pastries and cakes at the counter, there was no way we couldn’t lash out and share.  Everyone had their favourite but we all agreed that everything was delicious.  Especially when shared, nothing was too rich, too sweet or too dry.

Gooey wagon wheel interior

My personal favourite was the wagon wheel!

The chicken coop

The Grounds’ website is a coffee-lovers dream, offering filters, coffee courses and more.  They also always seem to be planning a new event or dish so keep an eye on their Facebook page.

Not just a breakfast or brunch but an entire experience, you can believe the hype you have heard about The Grounds.  Kudos to the owners and designers for every aspect of this café that all Sydneysiders can be proud of.

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Overall Rating: 22.5/25

Website: http://groundsroasters.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/GroundsRoasters
Phone: 9699 2225
Address: Building 7A, 2 Huntley Street, Alexandria, 2015

Payment Options: Credit card, EFTPOS, cash