Phone: (09) 849 7693
Open: Mon-Fri, 8am-3pm (kitchen closes 2.30pm); Sat and Sun, 8am-3.30pm (kitchen closes 3pm)
Cost: $57 for 2 people.
Online: mondayswholefoods.com
SET UP & SITE
Yoga-centre-with-attached-cafe is a weirdly hot category in the Auckland brunch scene right now, and there's possibly nowhere hotter than Mondays Wholefoods for this almost completely inexplicable concept. Yoga and brunch, to my mind, are not complementary activities. During the long period in which my wife was nagging me to go with her to this place, she referred to it as "Mondays Kitchen", which was crucial in securing my attendance, because the name "Mondays Wholefoods" is as bad a name as any in Auckland's dining history, reeking of 80s' health food shops and tastelessness.
SUSTENANCE & SWILL
The best way to explain what "wholefoods" means in a brunch context is that they've got proper milk and eggs, but no bacon. I had the buckwheat and cardamom waffles ($19), which came with a slop of sweet, tart berries, balsamic, chia, a scatter of crunchy macadamias, some coconut yoghurt and maple syrup. Zanna told me of her theory that wholefood-type places frequently overdo flavours to make up for their lack of regard for sugar. I have no real opinion on that, but if she's right, Mondays is an outlier. The buckwheat gave the waffle itself a gritty honesty, and the polyphonic dance of sweet, tart, spice and coconut was concordant and even thrilling. Zanna ordered the poached eggs on seeded sourdough ($14) with the optional pea guacamole ($4) and optional salmon ($6).
The pungent guacamole was more like a philosophical position than an added extra. Having had it, on a loaded fork, with the grandly globular eggs, salmon and thick toast, it was almost an insult to imagine the dish without it.
