Doing Good Over Brunch: Gratia Cafe, Surry Hills

Doing good can also be do your tastebuds good. If you like the idea of doing your bit for the world while eating brunch then Gratia Cafe in Surry Hills is a purpose for profit cafe that donates 100% of profits to different causes. So what is on offer here?

Between Gratia Cafe and its sister restaurant Folonomo, 50% of profits go to customer nominated and voted for causes while the other 50% of profits goes to causes chosen by the Pure Foundation. Last month Gratia and Folonomo restaurant donated $35,000 for Sotheycan.org and the charities they support change every 3-6 months.

Additionally all wait staff pool their tips and these go to the fund that each staff member nominates when they join the staff. What they get instead is time off to experience the work of the causes that they support.

So what is the food like? We start with drinks and order a few dishes between the two of us. And even little Mochi is allowed in their inside courtyard area with us which is nice as it is quite cold. They even bring her a bowl of water.

Our waitress tells us that this is the best selling item. The halloumi croquette comes as a one single square of croquette-it's not a solid piece of halloumi as you might think but a patty made with tapioca and halloumi. It comes with two runny centered poached eggs, tomato relish and parsley on the side. It's crispy, cheese and creamy and we both can see why this is so popular. Usually I eat 1/4 of an item and Mr NQN the rest but I eat half.

The other popular item is the beef cheek pita, a warm pita filled with sauerkraut, melted Swiss cheese and zhug pesto, a fresh herb based paste. Usually when I've had zhug it has been quite spicy but this is mild-I would have loved a kick of chilli to this especially with the tender melting beef cheeks.

Being very happy with our entrees we decide to split a pancake. The protein pancake is a single thick pancake slightly firm and dense in texture topped with their house made toasted granola, berries and a yuzu sheep yogurt. They use a yuzu reduction in place of sugar so this is really strongly flavoured with yuzu citrus which makes for a nice change.

So tell me Dear Reader, when you share food, do you split it 50/50 or do you do different sized portions? And what do you think about places like this that support charities?

This meal was independently paid for.

Gratia Cafe

372 Bourke St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
Phone: (02) 8034 3818
Open Friday to Sunday 9am-3pm