Restaurants GuideCafé

Live Organic Food Bar

Reviewed by Toronto Life
  • 264 Dupont St. (at Spadina) View on map »
  • 416-515-2002
Editorial Review

Vegan is the order of the day at this colourful and cheery restaurant, decorated in produce-aisle oranges, greens and yellows. Raw ingredients stand in for all manner of cooked comestibles. Maki-style “tempura” rolls deliver a delicately sweet and nutty though somewhat mushy filling of pecan and sunflower seed pâté. (The “tempura” is a sprinkling of crispy sweet potato frites.) Thai spring rolls delight with crunchy raw collard greens wrapped around julienne vegetables in a rich and satisfying almond-based gado-gado sauce. A platter of raw entrée samplings yields mixed results. Curry pumpkin seed pâté stuffed into cremini mushroom caps needs just a touch more spice. Sprouted-buckwheat pizza crust spread with pleasingly pungent macadamia mockzarella “cheese,” cherry tomatoes, kalamatas, red onions and radish sprouts is a fresh, crispy treasure. Pasty carrot and hemp seed “lox,” served in temakizushi-style cones with cashew-wasabi aïoli, turns live into vile, with an inexplicably leathery taste. Chilled zucchini cannelloni “noodles,” filled with a sweet and creamy cashew “ricotta,” suffer from an overly bitter tapenade and a sun-dried tomato marinara that tastes oddly of plastic. House-made agave-sweetened desserts tend toward wholesome pastry squares and cakes. Splendid fresh fruit drinks and smoothies, available with such health-oriented add-ins as bee pollen and milk thistle, abound. Friendly staff.

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