Avant Garden is a vegan venue in the perennially hip East Village which serves outstanding food by any measure.
overthrowhospitality.com/venues/avantgardenA small, warm restaurant on a corner near the subway in Harlem. Clay turns local, seasonal ingredients into festive dishes.
After an elating dinner with the friend whose name is CJ in my memoir
A cool restaurant with a terrace along 10th Avenue in Chelsea. The good wait staff serves seasonal, local, and sustainable food that is tasty.
cookshopny.comA great restaurant that offers locally caught, sustainable fish as well as tasty vegan dishes. I’ve been to the Crave Fishbar in Midtown East, where the ambiance is festive and the terrace a good spot to enjoy a sunny lunch. There is also a location on the Upper West Side.
cravefishbar.comA lovely café with sidewalk seating in the Upper East Side offering healthful food with a deep commitment to sustainability.
isleof.usThe five locations of Le Botaniste (Midtown, Soho, and Uptown) are CO2 neutral and offer excellent organic, gluten-free, vegan food. It’s also suitable for people following the paleo principles — for example, the friendly service gladly replaces the brown rice in the “Tibetan Mama” dish with cauliflower rice. Le Botaniste cleverly puts bottles of water and glasses on the table, so that waitstaff is not constantly pouring you more water than you want, which undoubtedly will be thrown away later. In addition, the mini chain carries metal containers that can serve as doggy bags. I take one with me whenever I eat out, scooping up whatever is left on my plate to eat at a later point, preventing waste of food as well as of bags and containers. Long live Le Botaniste! (I just hope it’ll balance the posters with female nudity by posters of male nudity — either removing the former or adding the latter…)
lebotaniste.usThis cozy restaurant in Park Slope describes its cuisine as, “Pan-Latin Cooking in a Brooklyn Brownstone.” The delicious food is responsibly sourced: grass-fed meat, free-range chicken, sustainably caught fish, and local seasonal vegetables.
palosantorestaurant.comIf you’re up for a Brazilian adventure, TAP — which has locations in Midtown East and the Upper West Side — is a fun option for organic (and gluten free) versions of indulgences like pão de queijo. TAP is mostly takeout, but both locations feature some tables.
tapnyc.com
