A new vegan café combined with a yoga studio opened its doors today in Kallio. It is called Roots Helsinki and I visited yesterday the opening party in their brand new space in Vaasankatu. The industrial country style interior features furniture from A & A Design that you can purchase to your home (price tags are hanging on the chairs, tables and lamps). It was of course the occasion to get a good foretaste of the food that the cafe will be serving. Vegan of course, but also gluten free, yesss!
On my plate, a fresh quinoa, avocado and grenade salad served with spicy pulled oats (nyhtökaura). What is ‘pulled oats’, you may ask? It is the vegan ‘pulled’ food, a Finnish oat and bean based high protein food that looks and tastes like pulled pork. The demand for this meat substitute is so high here in Finland that it is close to impossible to ever find it from the shops. Although I am not vegan, I must admit it was surprisingly delicious!
The cafe will offer vegan burgers and homemade icecream. For early birds, Roots Helsinki will serve raw porridge, smoothies and many other delicacies, we’ll stay tuned.
Last but not least, the absolutely exquisite – and not too sweet – chocolate, raspberry and liquorice raw cake I enjoyed for dessert was created by raw chocolate expert Heidi Holmström. So yummy and aery, I could have eaten half a dozen more (almost)!
For more gluten free places, follow me on Instagram: #chocolateandquinoaeatingout
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