The Organic Market & Café

Stopped for lunch in this busy organic café. The place is buzzing with good food, fresh juices and coffee etc. They have a mininal menu so they can perfect what they offer… specializing in foccacia’s and Bruschetta with a couple of soup options too and antipasto platters. This place is busy and noisy but they do offer outside dining too

Stirling is beautiful during the autumn. The streets are lined with shades of red and gold leaves and the streets are busy with people. One of my favourite spots to stop for coffee, lunch or cake is the Organic Market Café.
Set up on a side street to the main road, the Organic Market Café is a popular destination for locals and visitors to the Adelaide Hills. They offer a range of food, beverages and a market store out back. If you are looking for grains, organic veggies, teas, olives, oils, pastas, etc you will find it here. They stock quality specially picked products from around Australia and some imports.
They fruit and Veg here is really fresh and flavoursome. For those sceptics on the quality of organic foods I ask you to try an apple from this store. You will notice the flavour is more intense, it is crisp and juicy. This is the result on fresh (not frozen) food.
As for the dining experience, well there are a lot of beautiful healthy and veggie heavy items for you to choose from. My favourite in particular is the antipasto platter. Order it and you can thank me later. They pickle their own veggies and make their own dips. Also, if it is cold and you need to warm up while you are in the hills, check out the soup of the day. They have a great selection and served with warm crusty bread. Super yummy!
For those with dogs, this is a pet friendly café out the front area. There are many people who bring their pups along to stop for a coffee. So, don’t feel shy!

Wonderful! Get your inner hippy out and relax in this slice of heaven in the hills. Yes that sounds cheesy but this place has a special spot in my heart and ticks all the boxes for me.
If you’re lucky to find a table amongst the hippies wearing tye dye or the office folk on break wishing they could wear tye dye you will not be disappointed. A small but satisfying menu with many vegan and vegetarian options like foccacias, salad bowls, pastries and soups. The inside is spacious which is a must as this place gets packed out especially when the monthly market hits the adjoining lane way on the last Sunday of every month.
The food is fresh and doesn’t weigh you down, I can vouch for the yoghurt and fruit bowl, the croissants and the salad bowls as all being little winners. Coffee is worth getting in the larger size as it is quite delicious!
While service can be painfully slow some days (laid back but lovely staff) it is worth doing things their way and just chilling out, let the food come to you and soak up the vibe with the paper and a coffee. Outdoor heaters keep you comfy through the typical ‘Hills winters’ and the trees keep you cool on the warmer days. Out the back is a shop for all things organic along with sought out vegan friendly mock-​foods (loads of vegan cheeses, yoghurts and other bits and pieces my vegan friends would wet their pants over).
Don’t expect fast food in both senses of the term, this place is the grooviest man.

There are many reasons to go to the Organic market and café at Stirling. Firstly, they have a great café with a beautiful outlook onto Druid Ave in Stirling. Here you can get a bruschetta or foccacia and an organic coffee or other beverage for breakfast. In winter they have a great rotating soup menu and in summer you can grab a platter with tasty dips, cheeses, pickled veggies and olives or anything else from their menu. The menu isn’t huge but you will be able to find something you like.
In addition to this is the organic market. Here you will find everything from coffee, fresh fruit and veggies, bread, meat, herbs, flour, spices, sauces, beans, soy crisps, fruit juices, beer, wine, cheese, dips, pastries, vitamins, olives, dog food, seeds and seeding potatoes… They really have a huge variety of products for their size.
They also get great local brands like Kalangadoo organic apple juice, Rio organic coffees, Woodside cheese, Mylor bakery bread, Lobethal milk. All local and organic so you keep your food miles/km’s down if that’s your thing.
As with all organics, you pay a bit more than you would at the supermarket, but the taste is something else. If you haven’t eaten an organic apple or strawberry before, you haven’t tasted what these fruits should taste like. I wish I could afford to shop here for everything. Hopefully one day. In the mean time, I’ll be popping in for a coffee or some juice when I can.

The organic does pretty much everything and really well. The eggplant and tahini is my favourite lunch. Their large eclectic cake range is always a difficult decision because its all yummo. The coffee is good, and so are their juices. I like the blackberry and vanilla smoothie too. Attached is a shop where u can buy anything. Feels healthy too eat here even if you leave happy and bursting at the seams.

This place has been around for years and years as, sadly, have I.
In all those years, I have never actually eaten here, other than munching an apple while I shop in the organic store, or chewing on a stolen piece of dried banana as I make up my own muesli from the big bins of ingredients.
Anyway, it’s the organic food shop I want to talk about. I think you could live very well buying your food only from this shop. You’d certainly live healthily, but the main benefit would be taste. I admit to actually driving up here from the plains to buy tomatoes. The time and the petrol are well worth it — you cannot beat the flavour of organically grown, non-​hybrid tomatoes.
The organic shop even caters for carnivores like me, selling meat too.
But the best parts of the place are the vegetables, the freshly baked breads and the bins of muesli makings.
The vegetables aren’t chilled, they’re not regularly sprayed with water and they’re not displayed under favourable lighting to brighten their colours. They’re just as they come off the tree or out of the ground. Just right (after washing the dirt off if necessary) for making my specialty: the room temperature fruit or salad vegetable salad using fresh ingredients in season.
I’d love to live next door to this place. That would solve the parking issue as well. If you’re lucky, you can slide into one of the spots alongside the shop. Otherwise, you have to nose around Druid Ave or around the back of the nearby supermarket. A walk is good for you anyway.

The GF friands are really good. Weekend mornings are usually packed with cyclists so be sure to get in early.

Scrummy in Stirling
I am not alone in loving this almost Adelaide institution — almost because it doesn’t really tick the «institutionalised box». Organic since hippies ruled instead of hipsters and no one but the locals and hippies knew about it. Now as mentioned it is very hard to get a table inside and as it’s Stirling, for 9 months of the year it’s not terribly inviting outside although this doesn’t deter the dog owners or the hardened acclimatised locals. (However come to think of it on my numerous visits I have never encountered a smoker — apologies smokers for any sweeping generalisations about smoking a healthy lifestyle food choices!)
I have eaten just about everything on the menu and am always comforted by the steaming bowls of hearty soup in winter, the scones, the deliciously good (and seemingly good for you) cakes and slices, the lunch time specials, the breakfast fruit, the different salad concoctions and my basic stalwart — trio of organic dips. Add great coffee, fresh juices and an unbelievably good sure fire cold cure their hot apple juice and you have an almost unbelievably healthy and wonderfully delicious menu of goodness.
I don’t live locally but if I did this would be my local — guaranteed to ensure daily bliss and chillaxing. I aspire to earn enough money to one day make Stirling Organic Market my «supermarket» for every conceivable foodstuff and then some. Last visit I spied the most gorgeous array of olives and olive oil. I love this place — sigh.

One of my local haunts, I’ve been coming here since I was just a tiny little thing (which apparently I once was.)
As others have mentioned, this place is always busy– which is a sign, it’s good! The soups are always a great choice for lunch, tasty and filling while their delicious range of teas and tasty cakes are brilliant for a snack.
For locals it’s just such an easy and convenient place to meet– we all know where it is and what we’ll order when we meet! Many people also come from all over the city to buy from store attached which offers a HUGE range of organic goodies which can be hard to find elsewhere.
A wonderful place to call into on a drive through the hills with Autumn being the beautiful time of year to visit in my opinion.

I’m happy beyond words that I can call this «my local». Rare is the week that goes by without at least a brief stopover at this wholly wonderful eatery-​slash-​organic grocer. I’ve been coming here for longer than I can remember, and bar the turkey being left out of my focaccia one time approximately eleven years ago, I’ve never had a disappointing experience here (and that lettuce and cranberry focaccia wasn’t so bad).
The coffee is good to excellent, the other drink options numerous and delicious (I highly recommend the hot spiced apple juice on a cold Stirling morning!). The food is always super-​fresh and great, with staple breakfast, foccacia and bruschetta menus always available, and daily-​changing soups (2) and lunch-​sized mains (usually 1).
Service is always good, although don’t expect it to be fast on a packed-​out Saturday morning. They’ve recently created a new seating area with four large sharing tables so getting to sit down on a weekend morning is now a much likelier event.

Was disappointed that it’s not actually a market, it’s just a café. The food was ok but nothing to rave about for me. Although the scones were great!

Very busy café there is only a small menu to chose from with a daily special. Other reviewers are right lunch time is very hard to get a table the food was really good but we ordered a choc milkshake which was in a very small glass for $ 6.50 bit of a rip off, however overall a nice atmosphere and the attached store has great choice of organic products

Well worth the drive to Stirling with the caveat that it’s so popular you may have to wait a while for a table. No problem — browse the adjacent store and check out plenty of interesting goodies — even a smallish selection of organic wines.
The food is just superb — homestyle healthy hearty meals.

Tucked away off the main street of Stirling, the Organic Market Café is the pioneer of sorts for the café/​providore movement which is proving so popular at the moment. With locally sourced produce and products, the café has a strong advocacy for fresh, organic and high quality stock to make great food. This all very well, but does the food actually taste good? You bet.
As previous reviewers have stipulated, tables are tricky on the weekend, but my friends and I stumbled in here on a dreary Wednesday afternoon and were delighted to find ourselves as the only customers (bonus!). I dove straight into the sticky-​date special and was instantly satisfied by a delicious slice of cake covered in sticky caramel sauce and a beautiful dollop of cream (I fail to describe how amazing this cake was, it was so good). My flat white was just the right temperature and beautifully creamy and my friends raved about their picks off the menu.
The café also has a providore attached and the range of preserves, pastas, pulses, oils, cured meats and sustainably made produced is enough to make any gourmand positively salivate.
I suppose my only complaint was that there was a delay in the kitchen (20 minutes for some scones!) with one of my friend’s orders and we would’ve appreciated a heads up from the staff rather than enquiring ourselves, but its a minor gripe.

I LOVE The Organic Market. This is the way healthy food should be done. I’ve come here countless times and I’m not anywhere in the neighbourhood, but it’s well worth the drive. It’s the kinda place that makes me feel like I’m miles away, part of a commune, and we’re all living off the land. It’s always packed and hard to find a table — oldies, youngsters, mums, kiddly-​dinks, dread-​heads, cyclists, you’ll see it all (except perhaps suits, a pleasant change). Over the years they’ve featured many local artists on their walls (with all the art for purchase) — I like a bit of community and creative support in my cafes. The best things are the slices (if you’re a sweet tooth like me), they taste home-​cooked and natural, yummo. In a nutshell — organic goodness!

It’s a little bit hippy in here and I like it. All the staff have the same hair style too, not sure if this is uniform or because they are of the same social breed.
It’s really hard to get a table in here sometimes, that should tell you that it’s awesome, because it is, I say if you cant get somewhere to sit duck into the adjoining market and browse the organic produce. Did you know you can get gelati infused with jasmine? it’s amazing.
The coffee is good and the food is grand, the house-​made organic dips? Gah, it’s too much goodness in one hit. Granted some of it is a little too healthy for me, like the muesli and the apple juice may look a little strange but it tastes amazing.
You can drink your weird organic apple juice inside, or outside or kind of outside but not really on this balcony thing, I love feeling healthy so Organic Market and I will be friends forever.

What a great café. This place is authentic and high quality organic food. I used to go here all the time as a kid, and still make it back occasionally for a nostalgic hit. Every time I do it’s better than I remembered.
Specialising in organic, sustainably produced food, the Organic Market has a great range of healthy and flavoursome meals to indulge in. Breaktfasts of yoghurt and fruit, lunches of soups and muffins. Much of their produce is sourced from the Adelaide Hills and around. I’m a fan of the smoothies. Ohh the smoothies.
Eating here is like eating at your hippy grandmas place. The food is great and the setting is lovely. You can choose to eat indoors or out in the shady garden. Anywhere you go, the aromas follow.
The original Organic Market itself sits next door to the café where the bases of so many of their recipes sit, so if you feel like giving something you ate a go, it’s entirely possible.