Press Market

The pink doors on Mountain Road set an expectation — a wellness counter, a smoothie, a coffee to carry up toward Blue Mountain. Press Market is that, and considerably more than that. Behind the bright Collingwood storefront runs a mostly plant-based kitchen with an unusually wide daytime menu: breakfast that holds the whole morning, bowls and salads built to eat as full meals, sandwiches and plant-based burgers, a smoothie and coffee bar, and a dessert case worth a visit on its own. It reads as a quick health stop and works as a place to sit down for an actual lunch.

Breakfast is where the kitchen makes its first case, and it runs long past the morning. The Best Egg Sandwich stacks egg, sautéed kale, avocado, cheddar, chipotle vayo and sprouts on fresh bread. The French Toast skips eggs and dairy altogether, layering a plant-based batter under mixed-berry compote, maple syrup and coconut whipped cream. A Market Hash piles potatoes, marinated tofu, mushrooms, spinach, black beans and avocado under roja salsa and a dilly ranch — a gluten-free, plant-based plate that eats like a full meal rather than a starter.

From there the bowls take over, and they are the clearest read on how seriously the kitchen takes plant cooking. The Kimchi Bowl — one of the menu's Most Loved — layers brown rice, kimchi, sautéed kale and purple cabbage with peanuts, seeds and a peanut satay dressing. The Chickpea Curry simmers chickpeas and lentils in coconut milk with garlic and ginger, finished with a tahini-ginger dressing. The salads match them for construction rather than sitting on the menu as a token healthy option: a Cashew Caesar built on cashew "bacon," roasted chickpeas, hemp hearts and nutritional yeast, and a Nacho Salad loaded heavy enough to anchor a lunch.

The drinks and sweets get the same intention. The smoothie bar runs on house-made almond milk — the Nuts for Chocolate, another Most Loved, blends it with peanut butter, cacao and banana — while the coffee side reaches for a Superfood Chai spiced with maca, cinnamon and nutmeg, and a Coconut Cloud folds matcha into coconut water and cream with a swirl of blue spirulina. The dessert case is its own argument: plant-based, gluten-free and made without refined sugar, anchored by the Peanut Butter Popem and the Protein Bar. These are not afterthoughts dropped beside the till; the indulgent end of the menu was designed, not improvised.

What holds it all together is a plant-forward approach that never tips into dogma. Most of the food is plant-based and much of it gluten-free, but eggs, cheddar, smoked trout and honey turn up where a dish is better for them — the kitchen reads as flavour-first rather than rule-bound, which is why a strict vegan and a skeptical omnivore can share the same table without anyone settling. Press Market is also, plainly, a market. Alongside the kitchen it stocks prepared meals, retail grocery, local teas and honey, raw plant-based desserts and a shelf of gifts — the health-food-shop half that lets a visit double as a grocery run. An order-ahead app with rewards and delivery extends the daytime service past the counter, so the food travels as readily as it sits down.

That range is the throughline. Open since 2016 in a sunny corner of the Mountain Road corridor, Press Market keeps daytime hours — breakfast through mid-afternoon, closed before dinner — which suits the way Collingwood and Blue Mountain move through a day. The crowd is part local regulars, part visitors fuelling up for the hill or winding down after it, and the menu is built for both: quick enough to grab on the way past, broad enough to settle into when there's time. A smoothie and a bowl before the hill, a sit-down lunch on the way back down, a dessert and a few grocery items carried out the pink doors on the way home.