Saf Restaurant
6 April, 2008
Wednesday evening saw this carnivore attending a pre-launch event for what the press release described as ‘London’s first fine-dining vegan experience‘. How could I refuse? Saf (meaning ‘pure’ in most near-east languages according to the General Manager) is situated on the faultline between the Square Mile of the city and the cool style of Shoreditch. You can see a sample menu of their Istanbul branch here.
First up, about the premises. A restaurant’s location is the one thing that you cannot change – you can tweak the menu, fire the staff and refresh the decor, but unless you’re running a mobile burger van you lie in the bed you’ve made for yourself. An open kitchen means that head Chef and evangelist for raw food Chad Sarno (also described as “the Michael Jordan of living foods” by actor Woody Harrelson and the Gordon Ramsay of raw food in this lazy snowclone) can shoot the breeze with folk, so I asked him if he thought the location was right. He said yes, explaining that it took 18 months to find the right location, and that the other serious option had been the Notting Hill area. I think the place would have a much more skinny, mumsy feel if had been in Notting Hill, while this place has a more of a health-and-wealth feel.
At the front of the restaurant is the bar, which serves organic and biodynamic wines, beers and some fantastic cocktails. Lush that I am, I like restaurants to have a bar, vegan or otherwise. It creates a more relaxed and buzzy atmosphere, and it’s also good for ‘would you like a drink at the bar while we prepare your table.’
And so to the food. Well, it was difficult to judge, as Chad was making canapés versions of some of the normal menu. But what I did taste was good; fresh and flavoursome. I asked Chad what he’s most proud of on the menu and his reply was the ‘cheeses.’ Obviously, being vegan, there’s nary a drop of moo juice in the place, so he makes the cheeses from nuts, chopped and pressed and mixed with fermenting cultures. The pine-nut parmesan fizzed on the tongue the way a good parmesan should, and had a similar hit of saltiness, yet at the same time managed to taste of nuts and nothing like cheese. Other things of note for me were the mushroom dumplings, while the cheesecake was a winner and the raw cocoa-covered cherries were fantastic.
Chad Sarno and Peter Melchett
The Soil Association was there, and Peter Melchett and the co-hosts of the event made a short speech. He was keen to stress Saf’s three-tier approach to sourcing; organic and local, then just local, then organic if possible. I quizzed Chad over this. For example, where had the seaweed in the sushi maki come from? ‘Oh, Japan,’ he said. I’m guessing there are not many commercial organic nori producers within 50 miles of EC2.
I rather enjoyed Saf, though I’m neither veggie nor vegan. I think it’s healthy for the plurality of London’s restaurant scene, and it’ll no doubt prove popular with health-mad Hollywood A-listers jetting in after a sell-out gig at the O2. On a personal level, it was good for me to be reminded that you can do some really clever stuff with vegetables, fruits and nuts - if you know what you’re doing.
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1.
scvegan | 6 April, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Looks like a great place; makes me want to call my travel agent.
2.
Bill stevenson | 7 April, 2008 at 5:17 pm
This place looks amazing. I wish I were there for this event! It’s about time the UK caught up with the necessary consciousness of raw and with LA / NYC. It would take an American to push things along, wouldn’t it. Good thing Chad learned all that great raw food back in NYC from Master Chef, Raw Chef Dan the pioneer of gourmet raw cuisine with Quintessence Restaurant. Good job Chad! It won’t be long some one very smart will bring Raw Chef Dan to the UK to implement a truly magnificent raw menu. I’ve yet to find any raw food that compairs. I hope things go really well for this endeavor as it will spawn a flood of raw businesses in the UK as Quintessence has for the US. The world is in great need of it.
3.
Chris | 8 April, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I’ll be honest, Andrew, and I may be in the minority here, but that sounds bloody awful. I’m going to take a huge amount of convincing there’s anything more in vegan food than it being healthy. Being vegetarian is one thing, but what harm’s an egg or a pint of milk doing to the planet, or yourself? I ask you.
4.
Niamh | 9 April, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Sounds interesting! I’ve had vegan nut cheese once and I found it incredibly salty and odd but I am open to giving it another go. I’ll have to check this place out.
5.
Caroline Aherne | 10 April, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I was lucky enough to be invited to one of Saf’s launch nights and I loved it! Knowledgeable staff, an open kitchen area where you can chat to the approachable chefs and great food, which has middle eastern and oriental influences. The presentation was top class. I had “sushi” which was made from raw parsnip – seriously! Plus cooked wantons consisting of date and spinach. Wasabi nuts along with desserts like apple cashew
“cheese”cake and chocolate cherries – I’ll be back when it opens next week!
6.
dom | 12 April, 2008 at 10:08 am
Nice…bring on the higher vibration and get rid of slow heavy dead food. Milk is often full of puss due to intensive agricultural practices and the meat industry produces more Co2 than the transport system in its entirity. Its just a matter of making a choice and restaurants like this are a great thing in my opinion.
7.
Cathy | 12 April, 2008 at 10:13 pm
In response to Niamh…”what harm’s an egg or a pint of milk doing to the planet, or yourself? I ask you…”..
..the answer is…PLENTY WRONG…just Google re. negative health benefits of milk, if only for the fact that humans are not actually meant to ingest cows milk, only baby cows are, and of course there is the other argument about all the HARM it is actually doing to the poor cow, being pumped full of hormones and pus being found in samples of milk sold in supermarkets..one of the reasons why kids get asthma, and bronchial conditions..Did you also know that the human body does not need to get it’s calcium from dairy products? Plenty more in raw greens, such as spinach, in fact plenty of negative health side effects of excess calcium build up, it also goes by another name…plaque…so not only does milk rot your teeth, it clogs up your arteries, leading to heart attacks..that lovely raw, fresh piece of spinach don’t arf sound yummy right now..:-)
As far as danger specifically to the planet, read up on the dangers of the gases emitted from cattle that is causing untold damage to the envrionment…if they got rid of all the cattle and used the land to produce more organic veges, that would be far better for the planet, meat again, is another product humans do not need to ingest, especially as there is so much poison now in factory produced meat.
Also, as far as it sounding “bloody awful”..there are plenty enough “bloody downright disgustingly awful” mainstream, non vege places to eat strewn up and down every high street in this country, time for the good, healthy stuff to start making a pro-active appearance.
I look forward very much to visiting this new vegan restaurant,very much indeed!
8.
paul murphy | 14 April, 2008 at 11:55 am
The food I tried at the SAF night was pretty good albeit it all finger food but it made enough of an impression that I’m going to go back and try the full menu. The cocktails and organic wine were superb though. I spotted Eating Albion there doing hsi homework too:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/catfunt/2385308700/in/set-72157604370868773/
9.
eatingalbion | 14 April, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Hi Cathy, Human’s ‘arn’t meant’ to drink organic or biodynamic wine and beer either but we do, including all the vegans and vegitarians in that room. One could argue that at least the meat contains nurtients, where as most of us only drink wine and beer to make me feel drunk, how much land is given over to production of that products raw ingredients?
Despite understanding the consequencies I just don’t think the world is going to go vegetarian anytime soon. In the meantime it’s important to raise the standards of animal welfare so that we don’t have milk full of hormones and puss.
I remain a meat eater, all be it one who tries to eat good, ethical, free range meat where possible. Having said that I did enjoy Saf and echo my wish that non-veggies will check it out.
10.
scvegan | 14 April, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Actually there are some nutritional benefits to moderate consumption of wine and beer, though with that said I am a vegan who does not drink and this is really besides the point. Granted the blog comment by Chris appeared to be closed-minded and made without first informing himself on the topic, it’s still not really appropriate to get into a debate on this issue within the comment field of a finely written review.
It seems that everyone who actually tried the food at Saf quite enjoyed the experience. I believe the lesson here; don’t be so food prejudice and you may be pleasantly surprised.
11.
Tony Bishop-Weston | 16 April, 2008 at 3:14 pm
This restaurant will change the way the intelligent world thinks about food.
12.
Chris | 20 April, 2008 at 2:25 pm
OK I admit my comment did sound a little reactionary. Let me try to explain.
1. The best vegan restaurants (of which I assume this is one, at least in London) will never serve better food than the best non-vegan restaurants, because taste in Western cooking by and large comes from dairy and animal fat.
2. In a normal restaurant serving the odd vegetarian dish, you can be reasonably sure that dish is judged by the standards of the other dishes, and not just ‘good enough for vegetarian’. See my review of Pearl in Holborn (http://cheesenbiscuits.blogspot.com/2007/10/pearl-holborn.html), where my favourite dish (gnocchi and truffles) just happened to be vegetarian. In a pure vegetarian restaurant it will be incredibly difficult – though not impossible – to keep standards consistently high across the menu as your ingredient options are so limited.
3. Any restaurant committing itself to just serving vegan food is already starting with a huge disadvantage, and just by appealing to and satisfying the tiny handful of vegan diners does not really say much about the standard of cooking. If all you’re used to being able to choose is a green salad every time you eat out, I don’t blame you if you’re getting excited about SAF.
4. There are good vegetarian/vegan restaurants but the successful ones are generally from an ethnic background where meat eating is culturally more unusual. See Kastoori (http://cheesenbiscuits.blogspot.com/2007/11/kastoori-tooting.html). Just making French food and taking the butter out is a surefire way to create some pretty bland food.
5. That said, I think I owe it to vegans to try out SAF, and I will as soon as I’m back in the UK. I will do my best to keep an open mind, but I’m already not the first to raise a dissenting voice: http://www.doshermanos.co.uk/2008/04/saf.html