Mastic

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26 Cotham Road, Kew, 9207 7477

My score: 4/5

Eating healthy has never seemed so complicated. You can barely open your eyes or ears – let alone your mouth – without getting a barrage of unasked for advice from random food-group-haters, variously qualified nutritionists and the occasional orthorexic found at the end of a green smoothie straw. So it’s nice to go to Mastic, which does healthy without the high horse, and lets you eat gluten-free or all-green or paleo if you like, but will also serve toast or milky coffee without a side serve of dogma about gut flora.

Mastic is a new cafe appended to Hellenic Republic; it’s a George Calombaris operation. It’s colourful and cheerful with seating at communal ping-pong tables (sorry, no, you can’t knock out a quick game during lunch service) and appealing galley benches and nooks overlooking the street. Not-yet-blended smoothies wait for their moment, bright-eyed baristas make excellent coffee (with coconut or almond milk if preferred) and fermented beverages (kombucha or kefir) spritz in keen expectation. Breakfast means bowls of It ingredients – chia, black rice, coconut yoghurt, goji berries – in exuberant combinations, or plated dishes like a fabulous salad of grated vegetables and a clingwrap-poached egg with butter and herbs a la famous Spanish restaurant Arzak. It’s good and the combination of egg and fresh veg is satisfyingly complete. At lunch, there are wholemeal don’t-call-them-bagels koulouri (try the terrific moussaka filling) and boisterous salads, like green vegetables – raw, grilled, steamed – tumbled over herby yoghurt sauce.

Desserts are sweetened with stuff like honey, agave syrup, brown sugar (shock!), maple syrup and dates. The latter two play off in a raw Kit-Kat-sized bar with cacao, coconut, cashews, beetroot powder and chilli. It’s full of vim, super tasty and, just like Mastic, offers healthy eating that’s neither haughty nor ho-hum.

More healthy cafes:

Combi, 140 Ormond Road, Elwood, 9531 0084
It’s ever so slightly culty and it can be hard to find a seat to drink your superfood smoothie but the raw pizzas and caramel slices are undeniably tasty.

Patch Cafe, 1/32 Bendigo Street, Richmond, 9029 0328
If it’s Melbourne and it’s Instagrammed and the hashtag is #cleaneating, there’s a pretty good chance it came from Patch, where the paleo-inspired menu includes cave man steak.

Schoolhouse Cafe, 15 St Andrews Street, Brighton. 9593 3129
Every ancient grain and vital green is available at this big indoor-outdoor hangout but if you’d rather have a morning mojito than a lycra-loving juice that’s okay too.

First published in The Age, March 8, 2015.