Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore

Great café & interesting bookstore.
Great tea & coffee choices & yummy food.
Chairs are not ‘stay for a while’ but there’s plenty of tummy candy & eye candy to appease the discomfort!
The bookstore & titles made me want to curl Innovation Pitchfest in the corner & read!

Best coffee I’ve ever had… I know Australians take pride in their coffee but boy oh boy they have every right to do so!!! Fuck Starbucks! Their coffee and breakfast are off the chain! Not to mention you are surrounded by books and can enjoy a cup of coffee and get some reading in, whether you’re interested in buying the book or not!

I have lived and worked in the area for quite a number of years and have walked past this place many times with intrigue until eventually I set my targets on going there.
It’s taken three attempts to get a seat in here as this place is exceptionally popular due to its great coffee, food, relaxed vibe as well as brilliantly combined café and book store concept.
I got excited when I knew I had finally achieved the goal of making it to the counter to order. The menu was on a cute kids book and I decided to order Chai Tea and the Pesto eggs.
The place is famous for their Chai tea which comes out in a Tea pot and its freshly brewed. They provide you with a colander to use when pouring it. The chai was so authentic and beautifully spiced. It was so fresh and the tea pot allowed you to have about 2 ½ cups so ensured you could savour the flavour. The chai had options for Soy, full cream milk, skim or Almond Milk.
The Pesto eggs came out on a bread board which consisted of Iggy bread (famous bread — and for reason, it was delicious) and a mini frying pan for the eggs. The eggs were fried and cooked with Pesto which gave it a beautiful basil and garlic flavour. The combination of rocket and almonds combined perfectly to give it an extra crunchy flavour. The bread was perfect for dipping in the eggs along with the labor dip on the side which gave a beautiful sour taste.
When you set your expectations so high sometimes you get disappointed but this wasn’t one of those occasions. The experience was very enjoyable from start to finish and can see why people don’t want to movie when they visit this place cause their is enough chai and books to make anyone happy forever.

What a quaint little place in the heart of Bondi! It’s perfect for friends catching up, for some solo reading/​studying time or to peruse the bookshelves with a bite to eat.
The food was always excellent — huge fan of the haloumi salad, corn fritters and lentil stew. I went there again last night and much to my disappointment the lentil stew was awful. It’s normally served as a tomato based lentil/​veggie stew with avocado on top and sour cream on the side. However yesterday it was a dry bland bowl of lentils — barely a ‘stew’. Nothing came on top or on the side. My friend told me the former chef is no longer there so perhaps the recipe wasn’t properly passed down or they simply ran out of ingredients.
I hope they change this as that’s what a lot of people look forward to in the winter! Nonetheless I love the ambiance of this place so 4 stars for Gertrude & Alice.

AMAZING. Probably my favorite café of all time. Books from the floor to the ceilings. Free to read and they have them for purchase as well. Incredible coffee and food. You can’t go wrong here!
Seriously just go.
Great friendly staff, quite good options on their menus. There’s something for everyone. It’s not overpriced.
I will say the only downside is there’s no wifi. But at a place this good they don’t need it. People probably wouldn’t ever leave!!!

Juste essayé un café à emporter pour l’instant mais l’endroit donne envie de se poser pour la journée!
Étonnée que l’on prenne un café sans lait ni sucre car comme elle nous l’a dit le café est très fort ici, ok très fort mais tellement bon!

OKAY, Gertrude & Alice… you win. You really are the best.
I don’t think I have ever loved a café, a bookstore, a place to give me peace of mind more than I have loved you. I miss your food that always tasted lovely, I miss the chai tea that always made my day, and I miss the books that created walls of merriment all around me.
If you’re reading this, you would really be giving yourself a treat to stop in. There is seating both inside and outside, but know that you will have neighbors and that is totally welcome here. Foodwise, they have more brunch and lunch type of fare but it will still be filling for dinner. I especially like their scones to compliment my chai tea.
AND, the walls. These are books for you to read, books for you to buy, and books for you to admire. Pick one or do all three.
I’m not sure how long it will take me to get back to you G&A, but I will be back. And I can’t wait. xxx

Adorable bookstore with great food and coffee

Would’ve given this a five star, but the only thing lacking is wifi!
Otherwise, a fantastic cute little place. Very homey feeling and nice and warm. There’s something about being surrounded by books that is therapeutical.
I had the chai tea with soy and it was fantastic. The most delicious chai tea that I’ve tasted in awhile.

Great little café with few library types of rooms inside that are great for studying in dinner as they stay cool and the books around you are definitely there to put your mind to a learning wave:)
They have a little sitting area outside as well.
But the best thing is their coffees!!! Amazingly delicious! Definitely coming again:)

Met an old friend, there, between hard cover copies of Jack Kerouac’s «On the Road» and a whole cabinet of second hand Booker Prize winners. The food was typical café faire made by someone who loves corn. Coffee was predictable and adequate. Service was excellent and delivered by lovely smiling, unpretentious young people with a stream of charm and thoughtfulness that deserves respect. We had a memorable time together. A great place!!!

My favorite place when i lived in Bondi.
A treasure hoard full of books.
I used to come there after surfing, to get out of the sun
and give my body a rest.
The wonderful coffee, good food, friendly owners
and the books i found there had me achieve that easily.
Good place to get to know other locals, too.
Love that place.

One of my favourite places! Great coffee, friendly staff and a fantastic environment full of intelligent interesting people.

This place is super charming and peaceful– a hidden quiet gem amongst the bondi beach summer buzz.
Go in for a quiet drink or snack and flick through some of their amazing books on display. I had a green juice and salmon salad at a reasonable price.
Good for book lovers and people who just want a little place to chill for a bit!
Sarah, San Francisco

Gertrude & Alice is so wonderfully anti-​Bondi it hurts. There’s no green juices, quinoa bowls or an acai berry to be seen (I think) but instead decent Campos Coffee, home-​made hearty meals and a setting that is half bookshop, half café. Sipping your coffee surrounded by their enviable collection of books, is for me, calming and maybe slightly distracting as you find yourself scanning the shelves and noticing a title you have to have.
They’re open late meaning you can transition your flat white for a pinot come sundown and enjoy some dulcet tunes.
This is a real community spot. And it’s an institution. Don’t read this review, just make sure you wander by and in.

Went in for breakfast, came out with a book called «Street Boners.»
There’s just something mildly cathartic and wonderfully inspirational about eating a delicious corn fritter sat atop a mesclun and baby spinach salad and sipping a strong, smoky flat white while surrounded floor-​to-​ceiling by books, thousands of books, a vast repository of ideas and information, stories and sagas. And, yes, Street Boners.
Stop reading (this review) and start reading (a book at G&A). They’re all hella cheap. No excuses sailor.
(ADDENDUM: sign above the coffee machine reads «No we don’t have wi-​fi, try talking to each other =)». LOVE)

This is the not-​so-​secret secret office for all Bondi work-​from-​homers. Don’t believe me? Just try snagging a seat between 10am and 3pm — if you’re lucky enough to get any table space at all, your elbows will certainly be bumping up against laptops. But I’m not complaining because one of those laptops is probably mine.
With Campos coffee, large communal tables, great music and staff, and of course, an incredible array of new and used books, it’s not hard to put your head down for what you assume will be a 30-​minute work power session only to come out four hours later with a stack of new (used) books, a caffeine high, and an obsession with their raspberry pear bread.
G&A is as much of a community meeting place as it is a bookstore — exactly what you’d hope all local bookshops could be like.

I would live in a perpetual state of bliss if there was a Gertrude and Alice within every few kilometres. This beautiful used book shop turned quaint café should be a model for peaceful hideaways. Not only do they have a tremendous selection of well-​priced used books, but the tables dotted throughout this little laneway of a book store allow you to relax and enjoy chapter one and a coffee all at the same time. The café has a simple, but delicious menu of brunch items, salads, and sandwiches, as well as coffee and pastries, so while you’re journeying through a saga or sword fight, you can be sure to not grow peckish.
It’s my serene happy place whenever I go down to Bondi… If only they had this in Newtown.

If you love searching around a well-​stocked used bookstore you’ll love Gertrude & Alice.
Employees here are friendly and knowledgeable — from the woman at the till to the guy who helped me find Bill Bryson’s book on Australia (whose British title is ‘Down Under’ though it was published as ‘In a Sunburned Country’ in the US and Canada).
I could easily while away a couple of hours in here.

When it comes to a nice cosy place to take a break from the world and enjoy a book and a coffee Gertrude & Alice has the answer. Wrapped inside the intimate lighting, in a cavity of recycled and new books, lies a communal wooden table beloved by locals, and myself alike.
The chai, the sandwiches, the bircher muesli, everything here is amaze-​balls. Seriously. The homely cooking is a reminder of their unpretentious ways, their family routes, and their strong connection to Bondi’s true culture — a relaxed beach vibe.
You’re sure to meet some great people here, strike up a conversation, and it may become a new life long friendship. I lent my phone to a girl I met here, so she could call a new future group of housemates she was seeking to live with, just happened to be next door to where I live. She was a great friend and neighbour for a long while. Hi Jennika!

Books, great coffee, and now a liquor license! One of my favourite bookstore/​cafes just got a whooooole lot better… Besides having a delightful name, Gertrude & Alice features wonderfully wholesome home-​cooking style meals like the faultless corn fritter stack (a long-​time personal fave) and Moroccan spiced lentil stew.
The shelves are stacked high with all sorts of second-​hand treasures, and you will not find a new release here. I know because I asked for something and mentioned that it’s a relatively new release and was told, «That’s probably a little new for us». And now that Gertrude & Alice has been licenced I can’t think of a better place to enjoy a meal with friends at the wooden tables surrounded by books or just a glass of read while I browse.