Whole food café in Covent Garden, with a focus on raw eating.
The first-floor setting of this dinky café overlooking Neal’s Yard is one of its main draws. On a sunny day, light streams through the wall of windows on to big pine tables that happily accommodate large groups of friends who haven’t met yet.
We tried the club sandwich, mainly because it came with the promise of umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum). A promise it remained – whether they forgot to add it or sliced it too thinly it’s hard to say, but any flavour was completely untraceable. Disappointing pickles aside, dishes are, on the whole, enjoyable. Just be careful not to be misled by the optimistic-sounding menu – their ‘pizza’ would struggle to pass as such in any corner of Little Venice.
Go there with an open mind and an awareness that the food has been given a title that it might not have earned, and it shouldn’t disappoint. At the very least it’s nice to leave a restaurant feeling smug that everything you’ve eaten is actually good for you. Self-righteousness sure can be tasty.
ADDRESS:
1ST FLOOR
14 NEAL’S YARD
14 NEAL’S YARD
LONDON
WC2H 9DP
OPENING TIMES:
TUE-THU 11.30AM-9PM; FRI-SAT 11.30AM-10PM; SUN 11.30AM-7PM; MON CLOSED
Reviews
In the lovely setting of Neal’s Yard, this healthy and busy cafe is well worth a visit if you’re on a health kick. It’s definitely not one for a date because you’ll be packed in on long tables but it’s great to have a nosey at what other people have ordered! They’ve certainly managed to come up with some imaginative ideas for healthy and most of the time raw veggie food.
But this really is one for the hardcore healthy eaters out there. I don’t think it’s going to convert any meat-eating treat lovers. The menu does make the food sound better and more exotic than it really is and a lot of the things I wanted to order had run out, or at least some of the ingredients had run out so that was slightly disappointing. They were so busy that the service was pretty slow and forgetful. To be honest when I left I was still hungry and craving a large portion of chips! But perhaps I’m not as much of a healthy eater as I thought I was!
Find a Table
Menu
Wild food cafe is tucked away in Neals Yard in Covent Garden and serves raw and wholesome food. We went around 17.30 and we left our details to contact us when a table came free. We waited about 30 mins to receive the text telling us the table was ready.
It is quite a cramped space and we were seated on a table with another couple. It overlooks the hustle and bustle of Neals Yard. We ordered two of the samurai burgers, the apricot houmous with crackers and the sweet potato. The samurai burger came as two seeded patties with a filling of mushrooms, tomatoes, onions and olives. It was a delicious and an interesting combination, and was the best part of the meal. The crackers with the apricot houmous were not that apricoty but were quite oily. The sweet potato was also yummy…but you can’t go wrong with sweet potato in my opinion!
We didn’t enjoy the take on the hot chocolate as it had quite an earthy flavour.
Overall I was quite impressed with the food and it changed my opinion about these type of wholesome food cafes!