Last month a good friend of mine visited me in Florence who also happened to be vegan. In a land filled with meat and cheese I thought it would be difficult to find a place that we could go to for lunch, but thankfully with one of Florence's new restaurant/cafés named #RAW it wasn't a problem (and it was actually super delicious!)
#RAW is a cute little café in Santo Spirito which only opened up a couple of months ago. Caroline (Swedish) and Manfredi (Florentine) wanted to open a raw food bar to "present the products in a simple way with a sophisticated touch", reaching out to those who had already adopted a plant-based (vegan) diet or those who are interested in it (me!). The restaurant focuses on raw products based on fresh fruits and vegetables. They have a range of food for lunch which is all gluten free, grain free, soy free and simply food for health. All priced at €7.50 it's a bargain: Raw vegan burger with spirulina buckwheat bread, raw vegan wrap (made with fresh tomatoes and bell peppers served with bio spouts, kale, seasonal greens and basil cream), raw vegan soup of the day (served with raw seed crackers or buckwheat bread), vegan quinoa salad (with buckwheat bread) and vegan rice wraps (with buckwheat bread).
#RAW is a cute little café in Santo Spirito which only opened up a couple of months ago. Caroline (Swedish) and Manfredi (Florentine) wanted to open a raw food bar to "present the products in a simple way with a sophisticated touch", reaching out to those who had already adopted a plant-based (vegan) diet or those who are interested in it (me!). The restaurant focuses on raw products based on fresh fruits and vegetables. They have a range of food for lunch which is all gluten free, grain free, soy free and simply food for health. All priced at €7.50 it's a bargain: Raw vegan burger with spirulina buckwheat bread, raw vegan wrap (made with fresh tomatoes and bell peppers served with bio spouts, kale, seasonal greens and basil cream), raw vegan soup of the day (served with raw seed crackers or buckwheat bread), vegan quinoa salad (with buckwheat bread) and vegan rice wraps (with buckwheat bread).
All of their food is prepared without using any "hot" cooking processes or chemical treatments, making them raw. We decided to both go for the raw vegan burger with spirulina buckwheat (gluten free, yay) bread.
The menu said that it was made from fresh vegetables and seeds, flavoured with fresh parsley and turmeric, served with bio sprouts, seasonal greens and a tomato cream (you can choose either mild or spicy) served on the spirulina buckwheat bread. To prepare this they use a dehydrating machine at a temperature of 42 degrees Celsius. Apparently this temperature is the limit at which you can cook vegetables in order for them to still maintain their original minerals, enzymes and vitamin properties.
Let me tell you these burgers were gooooood! They were made from golden flaxseeds (or linseeds for those in the UK), sun dried tomatoes, carrot pulp and zucchini (courgette). The tomato cream was really good as well and the spicy one really is spicy! Also, I absolutely love all of the pineapples that they have all around the place, it's probably the most instagram friendly place in the whole of Florence. .
They also have cold pressed fruit juices which are used with a special extracting machine to prevent the loss of vitamins and minerals (this place is all about the health) and gelato which is also raw. Italy is known for it's gelato and we were really intruiged on how they would taste so we decided to try it out. They are made out of cashew milk, coconut pulp, coconut oil, dates, and a large amount of the flavour's fruit.
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| Left to right: banana coconut, mango, chocolate |
At first I was a little dubious but we tried them out and they were actually good! I'm not going to lie, I didn't personally like the banana/coconut one, but that's just because i'm not that big on banana flavoured things. The chocolate one was really really good (chocolate is always good). To be honest there are better places for vegan gelato in Florence, however they aren't necessarily healthy whereas these are.
What I really like about this place is that all of their products are natural without any added chemicals. They never use any artificial products (including refined things like white flour or white sugar) and of course there are absolutely no animal based products making it 100% plant-based/vegan. Although I don't personally have a plant-based diet, it is something that I am interested in and I really enjoy a lot of the foods (açaì bowls are my absolute favourite). This place did not disappoint and it's not hard to see why it's become so popular in such a short period of time.
They also serve brunch on weekends and anyone who knows me knows that I am a massive brunch fan so I will definitely be back to try it as well as some of their other goodies. Look how good everything looks. It can be found in Via Sant'Agostino 11R (red number). Open Tuesday - Sunday, 11:30 to 20:30. Enjoy! Alexandra x
