December 31st, 2008
No oven. No stove. No grill. No meat. No dairy. Sound like a hellish dining experience? The divine kitchen at Pure Food and Wine proves that it doesn’t have to be. The cooking at Pure is really not “cooking” at all, as nothing gets heated above 118F. The folks at Pure say that this “preserves the food’s natural enzymes which catalyze digestion.” Essentially, eating raw food is supposed to maintain a lot of the great nutrients that are present, rather than having them released by heat. Like I said, Pure has no heat-conducting kitchen appliances. What they do have is a few dehydrators which slowly dehydrate ingredients at a very low temperature.
The cuisine at Pure Food and Wine takes influences from all over the world including some Southwestern flavors in chili lime tortilla wraps with avocado and pico de gallo or Asian elements in a Lapsang smoked portabella mushroom. They do seem to love their mushrooms as a myriad of species were on the list from trumpet to shiitake and chanterelle. I’m a mushroom freak so this was OK by me! They serve wine, sake, and hard cider but no beer or spirits due to the high temperature at which these are fermented. I’m not entirely satisfied with that explanation. Wine can be fermented at a pretty wide range of temperatures and I don’t know it’s true that all beer is fermented at a higher temperature. This sounded strange. Anyway, I ordered a fig sake martini and E had a hard cider and we moved on.
I started with a napolean of thick pumpkin seed crisps, cashew cheese and mushrooms (trumpet I think). I’ve never had cheese made from nuts but the cashew cheese tasted like real, creamy goat cheese. It was a delectable bite with the earthy pumpkin seed crisps. E had the marinated shiitake and avocado sushi rolls served with freshly sliced, pungent ginger (not pickled). I’m amazed at how soft and sticky the rice was, of course without the use of a rice cooker. For entrees I had tamales filled with a soft white corn mash studded with marinated mushrooms (pictured below). There was a rich, raw cacao mole that I dragged each bite into along with a tomatillo cilantro salsa for balanced acidity. E had the tostada with mushroom, cabbage, pico de gallo and guacamole. The flavors harmonized beautifully in all of the dishes.
from VeggieGirl
I was in awe at how phenomenal the food was. Pure Food and Wine is not just good for its category, it’s a great dining experience in and of itself. Raw food is unforgiving. Think of the difference in flavor between a raw carrot and a cooked carrot. How fresh must the ingredients be at Pure for them to craft these involved dishes, without the cloak of heat? I will warn that Pure is on the pricey side, but even in this economy it’s worth it to pay for the freshest of organic ingredients, wisely prepared and served in a friendly, elegant setting. What’s better than that?
Pure Food and Wine: 54 Irving Place
Cuisine: Raw Food, Vegan, Eclectic
Average App/Entree Price: $14/$25
Food: Excellent
Service: Very Good
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.
Word to the Wise: Pure also has a casual, takeout option for lunch (restaurant is only open for dinner) called Pure Food and Juice and a vegan product site called One Lucky Duck
Related Posts:
Jewel BakoTurkey Saltimbocca with Fennel and Peas7 January Restaurant Openings (Colicchio and Sons, Recette, RBC Coffee)
Filed under Gramercy, Neighborhood, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square, Vegan | Comments (2)
Subscribe in RSS
[...] had one completely raw food dining experience at a vegan restaurant called Pure Food and Wine. Their theory is that raw food preserves its [...]
well written and informative post!!