Flagstaff, Arizona attracts outdoorsy people and is called considered one of Arizona’s extra progressive and laidback cities — which bodes nicely for vegans. I spent a number of days in Flagstaff and didn’t run out of scrumptious, plant-based locations to eat. It’s a sexy city to go to in its personal proper, although many individuals discover themselves right here on their solution to the Grand Canyon, which is an hour and a half away. Listed here are a few of the high locations for vegans to get a superb meal.
Plantasia
Plantasia Eatery is the latest, grandest vegan restaurant on the Flagstaff scene. Lengthy-time restaurateur Cecily Maniaci opened Plantasia early in 2023. You may eat within the spacious patio, or enter by way of a lobby and go beneath a beautiful fake-flower archway into the eating room. There you’ll discover an over-the-top inexperienced theme, from astroturf carpeting to vibrant, plant-themed upholstered cubicles and partitions coated with faux ferns and different greenery. I visited simply after Satisfaction week, so rainbow flags studded the fern partitions.
Associated: Tucson Chef Wendy Garcia nominated for James Beard Award
Maniaci took an interest within the vegan way of life when she went to a plant-based tenting occasion in Sedona a number of years in the past.
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“They drilled it in our heads, you might be what you eat. You’re obese and also you’re going to die,” she stated. A kind II diabetic, she managed to get off insulin by altering her food regimen. “We aren’t a preventative society. We’re a response society.”
The constructing Plantasia is in was a French restaurant for 35 years. Maniaci had fun changing the house into her inexperienced theme. She informed me that Flagstaff has a stunning site visitors in astroturf. Yearly the native baseball area sells its outdated turf and replaces it with new.
The meals is sensational. I stuffed myself with a vegan cheese plate, grilled bread with balsamic, cauliflower wings and berry salad. Then there was dessert: chocolate cake and delicate serve. The wings and the cake had been my favorites. Specials change about each month and a half.
“We make 90% from scratch,” Maniaci stated. Along with their vegan chef, Plantasia has an in-house baker.
Toasted Owl
Maniaci additionally owns the multi-location Toasted Owl. We visited on a Monday morning, and the patio and the indoor eating space had been fairly busy. Whereas Toasted Owl isn’t vegan, it has numerous veg decisions. The vibe was welcoming and hippieish. It jogged my memory of going out for breakfast once I was attending College of California, Santa Cruz. Flagstaff has two Toasted Owls, and Maniaci is opening one in Phoenix this summer season.
The patios at each the Toasted Owl and Plantasia are canine-friendly — to some extent. Maniaci needed to reduce it all the way down to 4 canine per desk as a result of, “We had been bombarded. There can be eight canine, 9 canine. It’s Flagstaff. They convey their clan.”
Every part on the Toasted Owl is on the market — from the tables and chairs to the 1000’s of owl knickknacks. Maniaci says she loves to buy and she or he likes to eat. And he or she clearly has a specific fondness for owls. She has a storage place the place she retains her treasures, and replenishes them as they promote.
Vegan breakfast decisions embody scorching truffles with apple and cinnamon, a breakfast burrito and vegan options to eggs, bacon and burgers.
Java Juice
Tucked right into a strip mall, Java Juice’s menu ranges from more healthy acai fruit bowls to vegan junk meals like chik’n nuggets and nachos. The café presents smoothies and espresso drinks and has a powerful array of each soft-serve and hard-packed vegan ice cream. Nonetheless well-nourished from a Toasted Owl breakfast, my husband and I opted for an ice cream lunch. He obtained a chocolate and cherry shake, I obtained horchata ice cream topped with some chocolate delicate serve. If I lived in Flagstaff, I’d be hitting Java Juice so much.
Morning Glory Cafe
Morning Glory is a neighborhood, natural vegan café that has been round since 1985. It’s a really nice breakfast spot with tons to select from. We cut up the breakfast tacos — made with crimson pepper cashew cheese — and the banana pecan blue corn truffles. I make fairly good pancakes, however these scrumptious hotcakes made me reevaluate my recipe. What I’m lacking is clearly the blue corn. So significantly better than your common pancakes! There’s additionally an intriguing dish known as atole, which is an natural blue corn porridge with goji berries, chia and hemp seeds and different nutritious goodies. Should you’re feeling daring, attempt the spiced mushroom cocoa made with uncooked cacao and adaptogenic mushrooms. I selected the extra standard mocha.
Cornish Pasty Co.
Pasties originate from Cornwall, England, and might hint their doughy historical past again to the 1200s. These handheld meals had been well-liked with miners, who may maintain onto the crimped aspect, or “deal with,” whereas consuming.
Because the Cornish Pasty Co. web site defined, “The miners hand would typically be coated in arsenic from the mine, so the miners would discard the deal with once they had been finished. The crusts had been by no means wasted although, as many miners believed that ghosts, or ‘titties,’ inhabited the mines, and the leftover crusts would hold these ghosts content material.”
Flagstaff’s premier pasty restaurant encompasses a rocker meets haunted home vibe, with darkly painted partitions and glowing chandeliers. A stunning variety of pasties come full of vegan fillings, together with cauliflower vindaloo, Portobello mushrooms in Guinness gravy or a vegan Hatch chili burger, made with Inconceivable beef.
Chilly Stone Creamery
Okay, it lacks the alternatives of the aforementioned Java Juice. But when Java Juice is closed, you will get a vegan ice cream repair at Chilly Stone Creamery. I obtained their vegan particular, Silk chocolate almond milk frozen dessert combined with peanut butter, almonds and banana.
Pictures by Teresa Bergen.