A new vegetarian and gluten-free cafe is coming to SE Hawthorne Friday, October 26. Wholism will serve a menu of dishes that would delight your white yoga teacher — blue algae smoothies, raw kelp noodle bowls, avocado toast. The restaurant is entirely grain-free, refined-sugar-free, and organic, following a trend of health-conscious restaurant openings across the city.
According to the restaurant’s menu, breakfast includes an assortment of smoothie bowls made with kale, dragonfruit, and other zeitgeist-y things, as well as house-made coconut yogurt served in an actual coconut and a flourless waffle with grilled banana, raw honey, and some sort of refined-sugar-free chocolate ganache. For a place skipping the sugar, several breakfast dishes lean on the sweeter side, from banana bread french toast with vegan lemon ricotta to apple cinnamon porridge with almond butter.
Lunch is heavy on the vegetables, swapping noodles for zucchini in a microgreen-laden pad thai, and tossing curried chickpeas with cauliflower rice in a tabouli-falafel salad. Kelp noodles come with house-made kimchi and gochujang, as well as a produce bin’s worth of raw vegetables. Coconut turmeric curry is available for breakfast or lunch, though the lunch preparation gets a handful of kale, sweet potatoes, and lentils.
The cafe has an espresso bar for the mornings, also pouring a selection coffee-free “lattes” made with turmeric, hibiscus, and even butterfly pea, a flower used in Southeast Asian cuisine as blue food coloring. The restaurant will also serve as a community center for vegans and the health nerds, eventually hosting events and classes. The restaurant originally intended to open at 7 a.m. Wednesday, but the Facebook event indicates the opening has been delayed until October 26; check out the restaurant’s instagram for some super colorful pictures of future plates.
• Wholism [Official]
• Wholism [Facebook]
• Wholism [Instagram]
