The Grounds of Alexandria @ Sydney

The Potting Shed is located at a beautiful space called The Grounds of Alexandria. It wasn’t like this before, and like all fairytales it started like this. Once upon a time, there was an industrial car park.

The Grounds of Alexandria is a sprawling cafe, restaurant, bar, coffee roastery, bakery, florist, market and farm all in one; with so much on offer, it’s the perfect place for a day out.

The Grounds is the brainchild of Ramzey Choker and it has since grown to be one of the city’s most popular spaces since it opened its doors in April 2012 with 15,000 people coming through the door every week.

And it very much is like a little wonderland, especially in the summer, when the place is bustling with families roaming the markets, people sitting around the fountain in the gardens and friends catching up over brunch.

You’ll even find kids playing with the pets on site including pig Kevin Bacon (currently in retirement), pony Turbo, goats Goldy Horn and Margoat Robbie as well as the chickens.

The Garden is opened in the summer and offer outdoor dining and wood fired pizzas with an ice cold beer.

Weekend craft markets are also held at the venue, which has also become a popular location for weddings, birthdays and engagement parties.

The Potting Shed

I came for dinner, and dinner was great. You can read all about it in a separate blogpost. The restaurant is housed inside a disused Four ’N Twenty pie factory last in operation in the 1920s.

Winding through a clutter of tables, loud groups, countless hanging ferns and pot plants, you’ll find the bar manned by a scruffy-haired, super-friendly beanie wearers. 

The menu offers cozy share options for groups, three course substantial meal choices for those wanting to make an evening of it and a fun selection of nibbles for people wanting a light after-work snack with their cocktails or a share jug amongst friends.

The Potting Shed is a place to meet, eat, drink, relax and chat your day and night away – where hanging plants, terracotta pots and timber beams meet brass, brick and iron. 

Where you can plant yourself down on the swing seat, bench or at the bar and feel like you are on your family’s porch. It’s a lively place where you can hoe into fresh, locally harvested produce.

A proud-looking blue and yellow macaw named Fluffy perches over punters.

The Secret Garden

When I went to The Grounds, they were having a special installation. The place has been transformed into a floral jungle inspired by the much-loved Frances Hodgson Burnett novel, The Secret Garden.

The garden is the brainchild of Therese Moussa, head stylist and creative developer at the Grounds.

Sunlight shines through a canopy of yellow blooms which drape elegantly above overgrown garden beds.

Each detail has been carefully orchestrated to blanket every inch of the café and its surrounds in a sea of pink and purple flowers.

These line the path that leads towards an enormous LED heart that lights up the centre of the garden.

I came for the food, but ended up taking a lot of pictures of the grounds.

The Grounds of Alexandria
41/43 Bourke Rd, Alexandria NSW 2015, Australia
Tel : +61 2 9699 2225

Visited in Mar 2022