DublinSova Vegan Butcher, chai burger bliss

By Annabelle Chapple
17 May '18

Down a sleepy street in Portobello you’ll find the curiosity that is Sova Vegan Butcher.

Chef and entrepreneur, Barto Sova, opened his café in 2016 after running a string of successful vegan pop-up stalls. His philosophy is to get meat eaters to try vegan food.

Over 30% of his customers falling into that category so he clearly knows what he is doing.

I’ve recently moved to Dublin to finding great vegan gems was at the top of my list.

The setting

The inside is stripped back with dark varnished furniture, polished cement walls, exposed bulbs and a terracotta tiled floor. The tables have small milk bottles filled with flowers which add a softness to the modern, stark interior. The walls are lined with art and upstairs is a further “gallery” space.

Outside there are two small tables for sunny weather. There are a few plug sockets, but no wi fi.

But it is much more of a eat and enjoy place than a bring a laptop location.

The fresh juice test

For the green juice test, I went for a “No.2”: a freshly prepared juice containing mint, kale, pineapple and orange juice.

It was quite sweet with a long lasting note of pineapple.

All the juices are fruit based – however, as they prepare them from scratch I am sure you could request an all veggie juice if you wanted something less sweet.

What we ate

We decided to go naughty and nice- one sweet one savoury. For our nice, we chose a Chai Burger which was garnished with jalapeño mayo, red onion marmalade, fermented cucumber and celeriac slaw.

The burger patty was chunky, full of flavour and very filing. I loved the addition of the fermented cucumber, as it’s light and adds freshness to the dish.

For our naughty, we tried the Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes with rhubarb compote and caramelised pineapple pieces.

It felt more like a small cake cooked in a pan. My favourite part was that every bite was filled with fruit and the tartness of rhubarb tied the whole dish together beautifully.

The Bill

Chai Burger (GFO) – 9.90EU
Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes – 9.90EU
Green Juice – Mint. Kale. Pineapple. Orange Juice. X2 – 5EU

What else?

The Vegan Butcher is closed on Mon-Tues, but open for lunch, brunch and dinner Wed-Sun. Booking is definitely advised for dinner.

The staff are accommodating and adaptable so they are more than happy to amend dishes for allergies or food intolerances.

What made us glow

As a 100% plant based restaurant, they love to play on their name “butcher” and have a really creative menu. Each dish is well thought out, large, full of flavour and regardless of your dietary choices you wont be left disappointed.

 

Sova Vegan Butcher

51 Pleasants Street,
Saint Kevin's,
Dublin, Ireland

+353 85 727 7509
visit website
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