Where to go for a Transcendental Latte

Photo by The Ingalls

Surya Spa has long been a secret for the health curious on the Westside. Operating for years out of a residential house in the Palisades, it’s now landed splashily at The Proper Santa Monica hotel.

Ayurveda, if you don’t know, is a comprehensive system of health and well-being that’s been around in India over 10,000 years. Martha Soffer, resident Ayurvedic guru, uses your doshic pulse to assess your core nature and imbalances, before creating a bespoke plan for a better you. There’s reports of bespoke oils poured onto your third eye, and massages like the Lakshmi, that begins with that oil (Abhyanga), followed by four-handed dry-brushing and a cacao rose body mask to polish it off.

To us, it sounds transcendental but, if you can’t afford the whole kit and caboodle, now you can experience some of Martha’s brilliance in the wellness brunch at the hotel’s leafy restaurant, Palma. We’re talking lattes, amazing magical lattes, that heal, detox, and, according to the menu, even give your brain a jumpstart.

On a recent Saturday morning, Palma was leafy and beige, in a good banana pudding way. The entire interior was filled with diffuse light and seemed to glow. Interior designer Kelly Wearstler had filled the room with subtle neutrals and then run riot with texture and a mix of fine art (think a lunar Laddie Dill sculpture) and Rose Bowl finds. We sat inside a womblike nook and began.

First came The Alchemist, a green juice whipped from kale, celery, spinach, green apple, cucumber, aloe vera, parsley, lemon and kelp. After that was the perfectly balanced Gingered Peach and Turmeric Spa bread, which the new Executive Chef, Alessandro Serni, topped with wafer-thin slices of apples and a dusky apple compote. There was also a bouquet of farmers market fruit—Bing cherries, donut peaches, Asian pears and tiny concord grapes—lolling around in a hollowed-out melon. And then came the lattes, oh my.

The Brain Power was for productivity, an earthy cupful of Ayurvedic herbs, brahmi, bacopa and dandy blend, superfood creamer and milk (any kind) sweetened to taste with a tiny cup of organic date sugar.

Another was Whole Body Energy, packed with adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms like cordyceps, ashwagandha, as well as Ayurvedic kapikachu.

The Mighty Turmeric was a lovely creamy yellow color, like lemon chiffon, and grounded with anti inflammatories like ginger, turmeric, astragulus, tulsi and pepper for bite.

Of course our favorite, being cacao-ists, was the Healing Hot Chocolate, with cacao, cinnamon, chaga, cordyceps, lions mane and maitake mushrooms.

And then, just when you thought you’d perish from health, the whole thing ended with a subtly fantastic detox tea, flavored with cumin, coriander and digestively happy fennel seeds.

It was not an ordinary brunch, but one infused with taste and grounded in natural medicine. It also did that rare thing: it tasted amazing and made you feel good.