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“Pure Food & Wine”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Gramercy	Moderate	Good

PURE FOOD & WINE

As you probably know by now, Pure Food & Wine, Matthew Kenney’s first restaurant since he shuttered Commissary in April 2003, is a raw food restaurant—the menu features fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and sprouted grains that can be heated up to 118 degrees. (Keeping the food under 120F preserves enzymes, vitamins and minerals, allegedly helping digestion and absorption of vitamins and minerals.) Rabbit food to some, this is a full time diet for many, including Matthew and his chef-partner (and girlfriend) Sarma Melngailis, who claim that it yields a calmer mind, sounder sleep, constant supplies of energy and clear skin. Funny, I get those results with wine, expensive moisturizers, caffeine, and Tylenol PM, but I guess there’s more than one way to reach your own personal Zen.

Kenney’s raw magic—the art of turning sprouted seeds and nuts into “cheese” (by pureeing and dehydrating them with olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and spices), of making rice from finely diced jicama, of transforming silky young coconut flesh into squiggly noodles or sheer sheets of pasta, of rolling out pizza dough from wheatberries, flax, hemp and amaranth (it is “cooked” in a dehydrator—a contraption that resembles a mammoth toaster), of fashioning soft corn tortillas from corn, red pepper and golden flax seeds (also “cooked” in the dehydrator)—was first made chic and delicious by chef Roxanne Klein, at her eponymous raw restaurant in the Bay Area.

Over the past few years, the raw food-vegan movement has grown, helped along by super-fit celebs like Woody Harrelson, Sting and Madonna. But with Pure Food and Wine, Matthew and Sarma hope to do to raw food what the Queer Eye do for Straight Guys every week—turn it into something hip, hot, tasty, and irresistible. From the looks of the place—low lit and swathed in deep red and rich wood, with an expansive and seductive outdoor garden—the Fab Five would be proud. Indeed, aside from the absence of fire, Pure Food seems like yet another chic boite; nothing overtly raw about it.

The menu at Pure Food and Wine features satisfying, vibrant, and robustly-flavored (and very tasty) eats drawn from Asia, North Africa, South America and the Mediterranean. So all you vegetable-fearing carnivores—banish visions of maniacal crudité from your heads. Just take it easy and plant your preconceived notions of what raw food is back in the ground where they belong. Have an open mind. Who knows—y ... [more, click below]

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Posted: July 5, 2004

Other restaurants in Gramercy :
+ Casa Mono/Bar Jamon   + Pure Food & Wine   + Parea   + Gramercy Tavern (Lunch)   + 15 East   + Tocqueville   + Irving Mill   + Bar Milano   + Irving Mill   + Maialino   + Asellina   + Corkbuzz Wine Studio   + Breads, by guest reviewer Tracy Weiss   

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