‘Yoga and fondue,” said the flyer stuck to the door of Beetroot Sauvage on Ratcliffe Terrace, Edinburgh. The evening in question involved a session of “soma lunar flow” in a low-lit studio, followed by bread and crudites dipped into vegan cheese substitute. That flyer revealed much about this new plant-based cafe and wellness centre, not least to my other half Charles, who began snorting dissent in the manner of a stubborn horse being led up a box ramp.
Personally, I’m pro any dinner for which something sentient was not partially stunned and done away with on my behalf, so Beetroot Sauvage, give or take some of the website’s blurb about blissful energies, joyful eating and magical safe spaces, is my sort of place. This is a boho-style cafe-restaurant, more shack than chic, serving a thoughtful, ever-changing vegan menu: dals, power porridges, homemade cakes, Buddha bowls, tagines and so on. Meanwhile, in the studios upstairs, there are vinyasa yoga, chi kung and tai chi classes, although the majority of the clientele, including several dogs, numerous children and many people wearing fractal leggings, seemed to be there simply to lunch.
Marie-Anne Marten, one of the chefs behind this venture, until recently ran a small vegan kiosk called Beetroot Cafe out of a former police box in the nearby Meadows Park. She recently joined forces with streetfood trader Gary Mcgirr, of Vegan Sauvage, to create this sanctuary for those seeking peaceable dining. Think Cafe Gratitude in San Diego by way of 1980s Stoke Newington, London, which was at that time awash with militant lesbians enjoying flapjacks that tasted vaguely of budgie food. Beetroot Sauvage took me back to a delightful era, some decades ago, where many of the cafes in the city’s green spaces were run in this type of independent, slightly anarchic way: chalk blackboards, recipes dreamed up that morning, and simple, nourishing food served by people who may or may not have once played timpani in Chumbawamba. “All I’m saying,” Charles said while we perused the menu, sipped our beetroot lattes and waited for our creme de la kale smoothies, “is that if the blueberry cheesecake is made of blitzed cashews, it’s not really cheesecake, is it?”
My face, like a nuclear winter, told him I was not open to this line of questioning. It felt as if Charles’s chakras were blocked, leaving him unwilling to enjoy new experiences, and I made a mental note to book him into the Move, Revive & Restore workshop the following Tuesday at 10am.
We ordered “Dahling I’m Home”, a subtly spiced bowl of green lentil mulch with tomato and chickpeas, served with white rice and flatbread drizzled with vegan garlic butter. Texture- and presentation-wise, it was glorious; seasoning-wise, it could have done with a handful more of everything. Perhaps the clientele are sensitive types who bridle at cumin and turmeric? More successful was the sweet, sticky vegan french toast, laden with chopped banana and coconut bacon, seasoned with paprika, soy and liquid smoke to form a weirdly porky rind taste. Will it ever replace bacon? I very much doubt it. Folk who love bacon are ardently committed to the cause and will not be beating a trail to GreenBay for ingredients.
Still, I can only admire chefs who go out of their way to experiment in cruelty-free dining. And in a landscape of cool wellness, Beetroot Sauvage is a breath of fresh air. It certainly does not represent the new, hard-bodied, pseudo-spiritual, Instagram-facing, three-hundred-quid, yoga-pant-clad type of veganism that one might see at By Chloe or Farm Girl, nor does it hide its rampant, chi kung-banging, hippy-dippy, we’re-on-a-holistic-adventure mantra under a bushel.
A lumpy vegan scone with non-dairy butter and strawberry compote may have lacked the airy fluffiness of something eggy and buttery, but it was a pleasing enough whack of sturdy carbohydrate with a dainty ramekin of sweet berries. The cheesecake that day was a riff on bakewell tart, a sturdy lump of set cashew cream, agave coconut, and almonds with cherries and edible petals.
I’ll return to Beetroot Sauvage next time I’m in Edinburgh and leave vegan refuseniks at home, because their negativity is bad for my appetite. Beetroot Sauvage’s place is more Germaine Greer than Gwyneth Paltrow, but it has an enormous heart. John Lydon said never trust a hippy. He said nothing about not eating their scones.
• Beetroot Sauvage 33-41 Ratcliffe Terrace, Edinburgh EH9, 0131-629 4484. Open Tue-Sun, 8.30am-5pm (10am Sat & Sun). About £15 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 7/10
Atmosphere 7/10
Service 7/10
• Grace Dent’s restaurant reviews appear in the award-winning food magazine Feast, along with recipes by Yotam Ottolenghi and more top cooks, with the Guardian every Saturday.
