Fairy Meadow cafes are abuzz each day as locals and those working in the area grab their daily cup of coffee or treat. But have you ever wondered what the top options for a good cup of coffee or a slice of cake are in the area? Here are the 10 best cafes in Fairy Meadow.
Whether you’re moving to the 2519 area or are a long-serving local, here are some of the cafes and coffee shops you may not be aware of hidden through the streets of Fairy Meadow.
Location: Shop 4/19-21 Princes Hwy, Fairy Meadow
If you’re a fan of the White Horse Coffee brand, which was voted among Sydney’s Best Specialty Coffee, then Xavier’s is your place. Having been open for five years, the cafe features an all-day menu. Items include a veggie plate, mango and prawn salad, beef burger, eggs benny, and Portuguese chicken burger.
However, you can also expect plenty of sweet treats, with cakes, tarts and slices. Xavier’s Place also specialises in a variety of platters, such as wraps, all fruit, cheese and biscuits, sandwiches, and sweet treats with fruit.
Location: Shop 1/31 Princes Why, Fairy Meadow
Opened in Fairy Meadow in 2014 under a different name, its name today originated from the original owners telling customers they were moving to bigger and better premises “two doors up”.
Operating as a fully licensed cafe and bar, it’s a place for locals and visitors to chill out on a Friday afternoon after work with a few specialty beers, cocktails and wines. Live music is a staple of the venue and events like trivia nights have become popular. However, Two Doors Up Cafe and Bar also has a great breakfast and lunch menu, focusing on fresh food made with the freshest Australian ingredients. And if a beer or meal isn’t what you’re after, then Two Doors Up is also a great location to grab a quality coffee.
Location: 43 Princes Highway, Fairy Meadow
Locally owned patisserie Zweefers Cakes has been trading for more than 25 years, enjoying a reputation of providing the finest quality cakes, pastries, pies and savouries. When new owners took over the bakery in 2017, they kept the original recipes that made it so popular to begin with.
All products at Zweefers are baked on the premises using high quality ingredients by pastry chefs. Not only providing you with a cuppa and sweet or savoury products within Fairy Meadow, Zweefers has also been supplying cafes and restaurants across the Illawarra and South Coast for many years. The venue is great for a morning tea treat, grab and go lunch, or afternoon tea dessert.
Location: 130 Princes Hwy, Fairy Meadow
You don’t need to hop on a plane to experience a taste of Italy, with Pasticceria Massimo Papa baking authentic Italian sweets and savoury items. Home to its famous Baked Ricotta Cheesecake, visitors are able to immerse themselves in the culture of Italian cuisine through the hot foods and variety of cakes on offer.
Owner Massimo started his first full time job in the baking industry at age 12, where he learned what it takes to become a pastry chef. The Fairy Meadow business was opened in 2014, and includes unique creations such as favourites like the Limoncello cake.
Location: 2/98 Princes Hwy, Fairy Meadow
One of Fairy Meadow’s newer cafes having opened in 2021, this establishment offers delicious food, coffee and gifts. Locals are familiar with its metal art pieces, including the “crazy horse” made by Little Wing Orlando, which was aptly named “iron maiden”.
The cafe stocks interesting Australian sodas, pickles, relishes and jams to buy as gifts, along with serving up its house blend coffee Reuben Hills and delicious cakes and pastries. Its online store also sells t-shirts and sweaters with the Crazy Horse Coffee Co branding.
Location: 3 Vereker Street, Fairy Meadow
Opened in 2020, the Evil Eye Cafe serves up food, desserts and drinks inspired from the best regions of the Mediterranean. It features one-of-a-kind decor amid a vibrant atmosphere, and has a variety of spaces available, including larger areas for bigger parties. This means it can cater to a diverse range of needs, whether you’re looking to celebrate a special occasion, host a corporate event, or simply enjoy a night out with friends.
Evil Eye Cafe can offer high teas, host your birthday celebration, provide catering and has even been known to deliver coffee cup readings after customers finish their Turkish coffee.
Location: 6/78-80 Princes Hwy, Fairy Meadow
Formerly The Broken Drum, the recently opened RUH Espresso Bar is serving up good coffee, a breakfast menu, pastries and cakes. With another location also in Wollongong Central, the new Fairy Meadow location has had a bit of a makeover but is still brewing Campos coffee for the locals and visitors.
When you walk into the premises, expect to see a clever and creative mural on the wall, the smell of quality baked goods and your usual favourite brew.
Location: Northgate Ctr, 224/224 Princes Hwy, Fairy Meadow
Looking for a quick cuppa while on the road, then the Wild Bean Cafe is located in the BP service station, just off Mount Ousley Rd.
Using its own Wild Bean Cafe Barista Blend of 100 per cent Rainforest Alliance certified coffee beans, it also serves up freshly baked goods and other food options. You can skip the line and order through the BPme app for pick up.
Location: 118-126 Princes Hwy, Fairy Meadow
Located outside the Coles supermarket, the Triangle Cafe serves breakfasts, home cooked food for lunch and cream teas, cakes and beverages six days a week. You’ll notice the specials board for lunches changing to suit whatever home cooked foods are being prepared, along with the regular Fish ‘n’ Chip day on a Friday. The cafe also serves a range of sandwiches, baguettes and panini's, along with fresh coffee to go. Or order a decaf tea, decaf coffee or one of the varieties of speciality teas.
It has a little space out the back of the cafe where dog walkers can sit and dine, or for those who just prefer to sit outdoors.
Location: 1 Princes Highway, Fairy Meadow
Whether you want to drive through and get a coffee on the go or prefer to sit in the cafe area, McDonald’s McCafes serve up their McCafe blend of coffees to customers. The McDonald's restaurant in Fairy Meadow operates 24 hours a day, allowing you to even get a bite to eat or something to drink in the wee hours of the morning. Or you might opt for the delivery service to have food or drinks delivered to your door.
Its McCafe section serves up a variety of coffees and teas, along with toasties, banana breads, raisin toast and muffins.
What’s your favourite of the 10 best cafes in Fairy Meadow? Do you have a regular or do you like to try a variety?
To learn more about the local area and buying, selling or leasing a property, contact Joanne on (02) 4285 7400.
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Mar 29, 2024
From traditional Australian dishes to international cuisine, the Fairy Meadow restaurant scene caters to all taste buds and cravings. Whether it’s Japanese, Lebanese or Australian pub fare, if you’re feeling a bit peckish take a look through the selection in your own backyard. In no particular order, let us take you around the world with some incredible flavours and cuisines that we're loving in Fairy Meadow right now. Fujiyama Teppanyaki Restaurant Love real Japanese food? The teppanyaki experience at Fujiyama includes a master chef cooking your food barbecue-style right before your eyes to create an entertaining experience. Ideal for group bookings and family outings, you’ll watch as the chefs chop, toss, marinade, slice and juggle your food in front of you. For a calmer dining experience, the downstairs or balcony areas offer Asian fusion dishes. Along with specialising in Japanese cuisine, the restaurant also offers a large selection of Chinese food for lunch and dinner. 12 Daisy St The Charles Hotel This Fairy Meadow staple features a beer garden with a huge range of beers on tap, Charlie’s Bistro with burgers and classic Australian pub food with regular specials, large Sports Bar with state-of-the-art facilities, and affordable and recently renovated accommodation by Nightcap Hotels. The bistro menu includes the freshest, locally sourced and house-made ingredients. The Charles Hotel hosts daily events, promotions and giveaways. 98 Princes Hwy Fairy Meadow Bowling Club Centred around bowling competitions, the club also entertains through a host of events, such as musical acts, raffles and trivia. Along with the entertainment, Fairy Meadow Bowling Club is also known for its bistro with a classic menu and generous serves. Menu items include seafood, steak, chicken and burgers, along with a kids menu. The venue also includes specials and seasonal event menus, like New Year’s Eve and Australia Day. 2 Cambridge Ave Fraternity Club A venue packed with dining options and entertainment, you can take your pick. Dining options include La Trattoria, featuring a cosmopolitan menu and authentic Italian flavours with large portion sizes of pastas, meat and poultry dishes, and seafood dishes. You can choose to eat indoors with a dedicated bar and room to seat 300 people or in the al fresco dining area, while the kids play in the enclosed outdoor playground. For something more special, book a two-course banquet. Alternatively, try Il Bene, which has become the home of authentic Italian wood-fired pizzas. Creating a traditional pizza restaurant atmosphere, it features hand-made pizzas using quality ingredients. 11 Bourke Street Spice Kitchen Mauritian and Thai Within an intimate setting, Spice Kitchen offers a fusion Mauritian and Thai cuisine using fresh produce with aromatic spices and herbs. Incorporating traditional cuisine from the owners’ heritage, the restaurant is renowned for surprising guests with unique dishes from its vault of recipes. Each dish has a focus on fresh ingredients from local farmers’ markets. The restaurant also caters for special events, including birthdays, business lunches, dinners and cocktail receptions. Shop 1/128 Princess Hwy Cabbage Tree Hotel Featuring classic pub fare, menu items range from schnitzel to steaks, to wings and burgers. Cabbage Tree Hotel is also renowned for what it says is “the best sports bar in country NSW”, featuring sporting events up on the big screens, meat raffles and trivia nights. The venue also offers function packages for events, including baby showers, birthdays, bridal showers, baptisms, engagements, weddings and Christmas parties. It can help arrange everything from a 2m gold window arches, floral arrangements, balloons, candy cart, light up numbers, and table decorations. 73 Princes Hwy Al Amir Lebanese restaurant An authentic Lebanese restaurant, it prides itself on offering the full flavours of classic Lebanese cuisine. The Al Amir menu includes cold and hot mezza dishes, food from the grill like kafta mishwe, mixed plates for one, banquets to feast for four or more people, salads like tabouli, and traditional mains such as Mansaf chicken and Shish Barak. Ambience Centre, Shop 6, 118-126 Princes Hwy Outback Steakhouse Part of a chain of restaurants in New South Wales and Queensland, Outback Steakhouse is renowned for its steaks and seafood. With an extensive menu, it offers appetisers, signature steaks, Outback favourites like lamb chops, pasta, combination dishes like Surf and Turf, and burgers and sandwiches. It also serves up a range of cocktails and other alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. 228 Princes Hwy Fairy Meadow Silver Restaurant If you love Chinese food, Fairy Meadow Silver Restaurant caters for everything from honey chicken, to sweet and sour pork, and Mongolian beef. With generous meals, the restaurant also caters for children’s meals. 100 Princes Hwy Dhok Koon Thai Restaurant For authentic Thai food set within fancy decor, Dhok Koon provides a great experience and large portion sizes. Dishes range from pad thai, duck, green curry and red curry. 23-25 Princes Hwy Looking for more cafe style food? Check out the 10 best cafes in Fairy Meadow. To learn more about the area or buying, selling or leasing a property in Fairy Meadow and surrounds, contact Joanne on (02) 4285 7400. Do you want to know what your property is worth in the current market? Search your address for an Online Property Report.
Feb 23, 2024
Did you know Australia's longest running commercial television show Mass For You At Home is filmed right here in Fairy Meadow? The television show, which started in 1971, was moved from Melbourne to Wollongong when the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong won the tender in 2021. The 54-year-old show is filmed at the St John Vianney Co-Cathedral in Fairy Meadow four times a year over the span of a week. However, this year the show nearly didn’t go ahead. Executive producer/director Daniel Hopper shares why... Why did Mass For You At Home start? It was done out of Melbourne for 30 years prior to us. My understanding is they would film it at the Docklands Channel 10 Studio. They would film the entire year in January because, with the cadets and all the trainees, Channel 10 would use that as their training base for all their crew. They would shoot it all in three and a half weeks for the entire year. The whole purpose of it is for those that can't get to Mass - and this is way before the internet. The main audience has always been those in prison, in nursing homes and in aged care facilities - those that can't be in their parishes and can't get to church. It wasn't to replace the Mass... it was for those that couldn't be there, giving them some spiritual solace. It’s been going for 54 years now. How did the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong come to produce it? In about 2020, the crew responsible for the production handed it over to the Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference, which is the ACBC - the peak body for all dioceses. That's when COVID hit. We started doing our Bishops Masses online. So when COVID hit, we couldn't go to church - we weren't allowed to during the lockdowns - so we started filming our Bishops Masses online and putting them up. We were one of the few that did pre-records instead of livestreaming it. We could do a three-camera shoot, and we could do it properly at the co-cathedral in Fairy Meadow, which is a nice church. We would do that each week. We would usually just shoot two a fortnight. Then when Melbourne said they couldn't do Mass For You At Home anymore, and they were only going to do it up until the beginning of Easter 2021. They'd seen what we'd done with the Bishops Masses and they said, "Would you consider taking this on or tendering for it?” I said, "Well, personally, it would be awesome. I can get the gang back and we get to do this, but it's a lot of work to do on top of your already full-time job”. I hadn't done broadcast TV before. It was another situation with God, saying, ‘Well, if you open this door, I'll walk through it and we'll see where it leads’. We won the tender and then we started. Our first one was on Easter Sunday 2021. How regularly do you film the episodes? We used to shoot five times a year, whereas now we do it four times a year. It takes a week for each of those. The whole thing was that if it truly is a national ministry entity, it shows around the entire country – in every regional station in Australia and every capital city. So I wanted to make sure that it's representative of that (by having priests flown from around the country). Is there a reason for the St John Vianney Co-Cathedral in Fairy Meadow? There’s a couple of things with that church – it’s aesthetically pleasing, which is why I chose that church. There's a tabernacle in the centre - so there's always a centre point of Jesus in the tabernacle. So every angle you're shooting from, you've always got that as a reference point in the background. So when you're shooting between three different cameras and you're editing, there's always a crossover and you're always in that same space. And then theologically, having Christ in the centre is always good. We bring our own lights in, but it has a lot of ambient light... so we can actually use the natural light. The carpet on the floor is better for sound. And the light-coloured background - a lot of churches there are a lot of dark woods and I didn't want that to be the face of what the church is. We want it to be welcoming. It doesn't feel closed in. It feels nice. It's welcoming. And it's reflective of what we're trying to do and what the mass is supposed to be. So the choice of that church is quite intentional. I's part of the Cathedral Parish. You’ve got this, for instance, we have the Xavier Cathedral here (St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Wollongong), and that's a co-cathedral. That's very rare. There are not many co-cathedrals in Australia. Fairy Meadow is bigger. For larger events, they couldn't fit everyone in there (Xaviers), so they use that one. But it means also that it's not used all the time. If you want to book it out for a week, it's easier to do with minimal disruption to them. There's many of those days where we can do a Hollywood wrap, which means just leaving it as is, walk out, walk back in the next morning. Do you receive much feedback from viewers? Our whole funding model is on fundraising. It's not cheap to do this. We do the production on the smell of an oily rag. We rely on people... donating to us. We get a lot of feedback from letters, phone calls, comments on our socials and on YouTube. The bishop then gets a lot of letters, and he gets a lot of letters from prisoners. I get emails all the time from children saying their parents had just passed away, but they'd watched the show every single day. It was their comfort, their solace, and their last thing to do before they died. For the first years - 2021 and ‘22 - we went over our fundraising target. It was like, this is brilliant. I thought, how good are we? Then last year, with the interest rate, with the cost of living... we were behind by about $100,000 at the end of last year. Then come early December, we got a letter out of the blue - someone giving us $96,000 in their will. That meant we could do it again. The Catholic Diocese of Wollongong will now continue until its contract runs out at the end of the year, with no plans yet set for the show’s future. Mass For You At Home airs on Sunday at 6am on Channel 10 and Foxtel, and and is repeated five times daily and repeated episodes on Ten Play. To learn more about buying, selling or leasing a property in Fairy Meadow and surrounds, contact Joanne on (02) 4285 7400. Do you want to know what your property is worth in the current market? Search your address for a Online Property Report.
