With a juice bar and a flower-draped ceiling and partitions, Andre Lopez strove for freshness when planning his new restaurant.
After a half-year wait, Lopez’s Jardin Café swung open its doorways to the general public Tuesday, filling the emptiness at 90 E. Predominant St. that NOLE left in 2020. Company will benefit from the bounties grown in a jardin (Spanish for “backyard”), in addition to the ambiance within the new eatery’s practically 50-seat eating space.
Lopez isn’t any stranger to the restaurant trade; his household owns Don Quijote. Odds are, followers of Lopez’s household’s meals will benefit from the sizzling choices cooking up in his new kitchen.
“We’re taking a whole lot of issues from the opposite restaurant, Don Quijote, like our floor beef and our pulled pork, and we modified it up and went plant-based,” Lopez mentioned. “So we used a whole lot of Spanish recipes.”
Three sq. meals a day
Beginning at 11 a.m., company can order plant-based or tofu choices as proteins in salad, rice and quinoa bowls, or wrapped in tortillas for lunch. They’ll then select their veggies, fruits, beans, dairy or vegan cheeses, nuts, seeds and sauces.
There’s loads of breakfast bowl choices from 7-11 a.m., together with the smoked salmon bowl and the salsa ranchero-topped burrito breakfast bowl. The menu additionally boasts quite a lot of avocado toasts.
Beginning at 4 p.m., Lopez mentioned he’ll serve dinner.
“Folks can strive quite a lot of vegan choices, we even have our sustainable fish, grassfed steaks,” he mentioned. “I would like everybody to present it a strive.”
Among the many vegan choices throughout the menus are vegan cheeses and lotions for bowls and carnitas made with jackfruit as a substitute of pork.
On Saturday and Sunday, individuals can get pleasure from a cheat day brunch. Whereas health-conscious greens are nonetheless accessible, company are given cheat-day choices, equivalent to pancakes, Nutella French toast and a breakfast burger. After all, mimosas will flowing.
Yoga and stay music this summer time
Along with its eats, Jardin Café serves wholesome juices and smoothies, cold and warm brew coffees, kombucha and native beers and wines.
The café presents an assortment of tremendous fruit smoothies, together with the inexperienced Jardin smoothie, full of vanilla vegan protein, kale, spinach, banana, mango, almond milk. There are many different juice bar choices — from the short vitamin-rich wellness pictures to the fresh-squeezed fruit and veggie fruit juice mixtures.
The vibrantly coloured juices await in to-go jars with labels like Bugs Bunny, Lover Boy and — what appears like a Predominant Avenue important on the weekend — Patchogue Hangover.
After Jardin Café settles in, Lopez hopes to open the joint’s aspect entrance, present some out of doors seating and set up a wine and beer backyard. He has already began barnstorming some occasions for the joint’s first summer time on Predominant Avenue.
“We’ll do some stay music in the summertime,” Lopez mentioned. “We’re gonna do one thing referred to as yoga and brunch. My sister’s an teacher, so we’re gonna have some yoga and do brunch after, give away from fresh-pressed juices. All totally different sorts of issues.”
Prime: Andre Lopez (heart) along with his Jardin Café crew.
