A Guide To Wellington’s Healthy Sweet Treats

Looking for raw, vegan, dairy free, gluten free or refined sugar free? So is the rest of Wellington. With plant-based eating on the rise, Welly’s pretty spoilt with every flavour of bliss ball, guilt-free snickers and my personal favourite, a cheesecake alternative where I don’t feel the need to spend a sunny arvo at the gym.

Keep these wholesome bites in mind below for when you need to satisfy your sweetest desires – with a little less guilt.

Innocent Foods

Calling all die-hard vegans and organic omnivores – for hardcore, wholesome eats this is the place to be. Relatively new kids on the block, Innocent Foods is your vegan friendly one-stop-shop. With cold pressed juices, salads, breakfast bowls and refined sugar and gluten free as well as vegan snickers slice, daily.

What these guys do when they acquire a mountain of organic carrots? They make raw, vegan Carrot Cake slice, that’s what.

Restore some innocence back into your mind and waistline, as the team work together with local producers to bring you the best Wellington has to offer.

Southern Cross

For over 100 years our place here in Te Aro, Wellington, The Cross (as it’s known to locals) has taken a turn to the plant life in the last couple of years, with a cabinet stocked daily with sweets  to tempt from the early AM right through late into the PM.

A predictable detour on my way to work leads me to what I like to call ‘Raw Roulette’. With a soft spot for cheesecake and any justification, like “it’s healthy, right?”, to eat sweets before 9am, seeing what raw cheesecake the cabinet is stocked with is a pretty pleasant way to begin the day.

From a raw salted caramel macadamia vegan cheesecake

To raw, vegan cheesecake with lemon, earl grey, poppy seed & pistachio

With creative flavour combinations get me salivating by the counter.

Mango, coconut and turmeric cheesecake

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Pair your craving with a Beetroot Latte while flicking through the paper, playing chess by the fire or giving your evening to Life Drawing for lazy weekend lounging.

Midnight Espresso

Wellington’s most established all day and late night cafe. Midnight Espresso is one of the best places in town for cheap eats any time of the day.

A place that’s hustling and bustling be the usual Lunch rush or midnight fix (this place really lives up to it’s namesake), they also offer a range of predominantly vegetarian food, with awesome vegan alternatives and presentation to match on the sweet and savoury front.

When it comes to the sweet hit, Midnight’s Vegan chocolate cake is the stuff dreams are made of. Not so wholesome as it’s not refined sugar free, but it’s worth the exception here. This is it. The chocolate cake you’ll fit in at lunch. And in the middle of the night. This is where the danger is, Midnight is open from 7am to 3am, so you literally can get it in the middle of the night.

A perfectly moist, rich chocolate flavor with a perfect buttercream reminiscent frosting.