Essence Cuisine vegan restaurant to open in Shoreditch

Essence Cuisine, a plant-based and free-from vegan food concept, is opening on Leonard Street in London's Shoreditch on 4 September.

Originally founded by Bart Roman in Belgium in 2014 as a pop-up, the Essence Cuisine menu is meat, dairy, gluten, and refined sugar free and has been developed with US celebrity chef Matthew Kenney.

The first 30-cover permanent restaurant will offer breakfast and brunch dishes such as golden quinoa porridge with radishes, sprouts, chilli flakes, and seeded bread; scrambled chickpeas, kale, green harissa, asparagus, and anchovies; and raw pancakes with candied walnuts, berry salad, mint, and vanilla coconut cream.

For lunch and dinner will be a range of salads and mains, such as tricolour quinoa, cumin sweet potato and Jerusalem artichoke cream; heirloom tomato lasagna with courgette, sun-dried tomato marinara, pistachio pesto and macadamia ricotta cream; and raw pad Thai, made from kelp noodles with marinated kale, tamari almonds and lime.

The range of sweets will include lime cheesecake with ginger crumble; chocolate caramel brownie made from raw cacao ganache, medjool caramel and Himalayan salt; and raw macaroons. There will also be a nut cheese board.

Kenney said: "There is a misconception that healthy food isn't as ‘tasty' or decadent as unhealthy food. We challenge anyone to take a bite of our raw cakes, or raw pancakes and see if they feel deprived!"

On the drinks menu will be the brand's own range of organic, cold-pressed juices; nut milks; vegan, organic, and biodynamic wines; and cold-pressed cocktails.

The site has been designed by Swedish architect Andreas Bozarth Fornell, featuring non-cladded walls with a rough cement plaster finish, a dropped aluminium ceiling and a concrete bar.

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