We had a blast and I got to try so many different dishes from their ever-evolving menu. I was pretty much in food heaven, and I had to try extremely hard not to eat too much of any one dish so I could keep trying things, and also so I could save room for their heavenly carrot cake. #duh

Greg Dollarhyde is VG‘s CEO a.k.a “chief energizing officer,” which is probably the most fitting term I have ever heard. Greg’s energy and passion for Veggie Grill, the west coast’s largest vegetarian chain, was displayed from the very moment I sat down with him. Not only was he cracking jokes right away, but he hopped up from the table every few minutes to make sure everything in the restaurant was running smoothly. He also made sure I had a fresh, refilled iced tea in my hand, two different flavors that they offer, every time my drink started to get a little low. (I drink really fast, and their iced green tea is basically a beverage from the God’s. So damn good.)

His passion for the restaurant was obvious to me from the get-go, and it made immediate sense to me why Veggie Grill is thriving above many other veggie-centric restaurants — it’s not just about the food, it’s about the vibe, the team behind it, the food philosophy and so much more. VG is a “veggie positive” restaurant, meaning that although the food is 100% plant-based, it does not alienate any particular type of person or eater. I feel very comfortable there eating as a non-vegan just like I felt comfortable and happy there when I was vegan. There is something there for everyone, and they don’t push the plant-based lifestyle on their customers. Instead they focus on serving delicious plant-based food rich with flavor, texture and variety.

Also, VG isn’t Greg’s first go-round in the restaurant business. He has been executive chairman / chief executive of huge restaurant chains Baja Fresh, Pizza Hut, Zoe’s Kitchen and more. So I imagine getting into the healthy, vegetarian world of Veggie Grill was probably a really fun change of pace for him — and he agrees that by eating so much vegetarian food (at least one meal a day from the restaurant, if not more) he has seen very noticeable changes in his health. “More energy,” he said. “I have so much more energy. It’s like an unbelievable zing.”

Sonoran Summer Salad with Blackened Chickin’, a.k.a Greg’s favorite menu item

Veggie Grill focuses on the awesome term “vegolution” (and they hashtag it on Instagram all the time, check it out!), which Greg describes as a veggie-positive awareness. “We didn’t start the vegolution, but we incorporate it into what we do here. It’s not a movement, it’s just an awareness about the fact that fruits, veggies, grains, nuts are going to be better for you than the alternative. You will feel the difference in your health over time.”

Over a delicious meal (MEALS, I should say, because we had so much delicious food) of veggie-rich cuisine, I asked Greg some questions about VG that I have wondered for a long time. Check out our Q&A below, and admire the delicious plant food that we ate while we chatted!

Q&A with Veggie Grill CEO Greg Dollarhyde

Q: I have to ask, since my blog is all about balance and incorporating health into our lives without going overboard. How does Veggie Grill prioritize the balance of health, taste, ambiance, energy and variety?

A: As a restauranteur, the idea is to be inclusive. You can always tell when a restaurant is great because you walk in and see all different types of people from all walks of life, and I believe we’ve mastered that. We do it through food- bold food, clean food, a real variety. We want our food to be not only clean but satisfying. I knew the menu should have everything on it from light, clean, crisp and not spicy all the way over to thick, rich, spicy and gooey. We have this whole matrix of light to heavy, mild to full flavored, etc. You have to be able to cover that pretty well with people so that there is something for everyone. We have a lot of fresh veggies, but they’re not just sitting there roasted in a bowl. We have cauliflower mashed potatoes, fried cauliflower, celery on the side of our buffalo wings and so much more.

Just a portion of our wonderful VG feast

Q: What inspired you to get involved with Veggie Grill after so many years in the restaurant business in not necessarily “healthy” restaurant chains?

A: There’s a long-term trend in the United States that started about 10 years ago where people really want this: “make it better for me, but I don’t want to give anything up.” Making it “better” could mean no hormones, no antibiotics, no trans fats, low calorie, low glycemic etc. It depends on the person. People want that but they don’t want to give up taste, flavor and texture. Everyone’s idea of what’s healthy has to be incorporated in the restaurant’s offerings. Everything we have is healthy and plant-based, made of nuts, grains, legumes, veggies and fruit. It’s healthy, but if we did all that and made it all low calorie, no one would come in. We have low calorie options and rich, gooey, “cheesy,” textured options that are not low calorie at all. I wanted to be involved in a restaurant that understood that concept and carried it out– make it healthier, but don’t sacrifice anything.

Q: What kind of health benefits have you experienced since working at Veggie Grill and incorporating so much fresh, plant-based food into your life?

A: Energy. I don’t eat dairy, I don’t eat meat, but I do eat fish. Not eating dairy was such a change for me, it made a huge difference. When I came on board I ate a complete vegan diet for the first four months to see what changes would happen. Immediately my sinuses cleared up, I had more energy, and I haven’t had a cold in 3 years. Eating clean, nutrient dense food, after a while you feel great and you bounce back from stuff. It’s pretty awesome.

BTLA with the yummiest blackened tempeh of all time

Q: What’s your favorite thing on the menu?

A: I eat our food once a day, sometimes twice, so it really depends on the day. One thing I need to have pretty often is the Sonoran Summer Bowl with blackened chicken on top, because I absolutely love it. Also, the quinoa and kale burger is one of my go-to’s. It’s made from scratch in house and we have a new cheese we top it with that is based on fermented tofu and coconut oil that comes from Europe and is way ahead. 

Q: Veggie Grill’s customer mission, in a nutshell?

A: We’re just seeking people who are looking to add more veggies, fruits, grains and nuts to the center of their plates…and make sure it’s damned craveable. That is what we do here.

Pretty awesome, right?!

Glazed tofu Banh Mi amazingness

It was so cool being able to sit down with Greg and learn firsthand what works and what doesn’t work in the healthy restaurant business, and also to see what Veggie Grill has grown into over the last several years. I have personally been a fan since my YogaWorks teacher training days in 2011 when I used to frequent the El Segundo location like it was my job. I am so thrilled to see where the restaurant business is moving, and it is SO COOL to talk to a restauranteur who understands the importance of not only variety, taste, flavor and ambiance but HEALTH and the importance of incorporating plant-based foods into our diet.

And yes, although I am no longer vegan I still have a huge spot on my heart for great plant-based restaurants. I eat a lot of veggies, fruits, nuts, grains and legumes, and I stray away from the LABEL of veganism because it was too much for me. In a way, that’s what Veggie Grill does as well. They don’t plaster the word “vegan” all over their menu, and they certainly don’t have the “vegan” attitude I have encountered (sadly) and many other plant-based restaurants. They’re inclusive, they’re veggie positive, and they rock. I am all about it.

And the really cool thing? Through this experience with them, I have learned that I too am “veggie positive.” I understand the vast benefits of living a plant-heavy lifestyle, and I desperately want to see the restaurant culture and our food culture as a whole move in a healthier, more natural and organic direction. Just because I don’t identify as a vegan and because I DO eat meat now because my body needs/craves it in order to function at its highest level doesn’t mean that I am not veggie positive and that I don’t appreciate a good plant-based restaurant!

As Greg says, “You don’t have to be a vegan or vegetarian to be veggie positive.” I could not agree more. I love the inclusivity and the common denominator of health, wellness and delicious taste. If you guys haven’t checked out this restaurant yet, you absolutely have to. VG is the way of the future and I am so excited to see where they go from here!

Another fav on the menu for me is the quinoa power bowl… 15g of protein, and so much goodness packed in with so much flavor! Heaven

Quinoa Power Salad… Yes!!

Oh, and me diving into the BTLA. I mean, look at that face… Pure bliss.

Have you been to Veggie Grill?! Do you want a Veggie Grill in your city, if you don’t already have one? Tell us below. Would love to hear your thoughts. And check out their awesome menu HERE! It’s un-freaking-real.

But sometimes it feels really good to get back to the basics, my roots, and blog about FOOD. Health food, that is. Even if I don’t blog about it on the daily, seeking out healthy restaurants in my city and everywhere I travel to is one of my greatest passions. In my off-the-screen life, nearly every day you can find me wandering the aisles of a hole-in-the-wall organic grocery store and/or scrolling through my phone to seek out the nearest up & coming juice bar. Plus, I have my staples that I visit way too often. Kreation Juicery is a staple, and it has been for a longgggg time.

Plus, they have food, which is so deliciously amazing.

Let’s have a little story time real quick: 

When I first became vegan and started incorporating delish, cold-pressed juices into my daily routine, there weren’t a WHOLE lot of options for me. I lived in L.A., but it was late 2012 and the juicing boom hadn’t exactly hit yet. There were a couple of decent options, but for the most part they were hippie-hippie (totally fine with me as far as food goes, I’m a hippie-dippie) spots that lacked ambiance, decor and all around great vibes. I am all about the vibe of a place… Even if their food/juice rocks, it has to be a place I want to hang out.

Then I discovered Kreation — a little grab & go juicery in Manhattan Beach that so happened to be directly next to the yoga studio where I worked at the time, The Green Yogi. I was instantly hooked. It was trendy in a “not many people know about this place yet but I know it’s going to blow up & be huge” kind of way, their packaging was awesome and forward-thinking, the people working there were insanely nice and their juice flavors were delicious and had a lot of variety. Kreation soon became a morningly stop for me, and then a twice daily stop, and whenever people came into town to visit I took them by to get a juice or smoothie and go down to the MB Pier for a beach walk.

I felt like it was my little healthy haven down on the beach, by the yoga studio, and super indicative of my new uber healthy lifestyle. It was such a refuge for me as I was finishing up college and felt the overwhelming desire to be in a less structured, more health-minded and creatively stimulating environment. It rocked! I will always remember going in there, chatting with the people working there about my latest mint-blueberry green tea mason jar concoction (before mason jars were a thing, mind you), sipping on a green juice and feeling so utterly in the right place.

Then they opened a Beverly Hills location which was equally convenient when I began working over there, and I could already tell the company was expanding in a good way because they had a made to order smoothie bar and a bigger space to accommodate more customers at once. Plus, right there on Beverly, very trendy area — always a good sign for a growing business.

Of course, as you all know, a lot of things have changed for me over the last few years. I moved to NYC right after college and then moved back to LA last year, I stopped being vegan, and I have tried to disconnect myself from the ultra-health-minded vibes I was putting out there for a while because I had become so obsessive (read: orthorexic). But one thing that has not changed is my love for healthy restaurants, well-made and delicious juices and smoothies, and up and coming healthy spots with great ambiance. I still frequent Kreation ALL the time, although perhaps the two juices per day thing was a little much. (But perhaps not, depending on the day!)

I had the pleasure of attending Kreation West Hollywood’s Grand Opening party last weekend, and woah was it a killer event. As far as juice bars go, this new Kreation location is top of the line. It keeps up with the energy of the trendy WeHo restaurants that surround it, and for a juice & smoothie place (they have really yummy food too, but you know juices and smoothies are my FAV, always) it holds its own entirely. The earthy chic decor and positive energy radiating through the place stole my heart. Between the sleek wooden dining tables, bright green grass covering the outdoor patio, brightly lit refrigerators chalk-full of glowing juices and healthy food options, a super big made to order juice bar, the simple yet colorful block-color menus on the wall, and super friendly staff, Kreation’s got it goin’ ON.

Relish cold-pressed juice mimosas at the launch party

Plus, any party that has body paint, acro yoga, fresh juice cocktails (yes, COCKTAILS), live music and yummy food totally wins me over. I brought two of my girlfriends with me and we had a blast. Afterward we walked around the neighborhood and popped into some fun bars to keep the night going, and I couldn’t help but keep saying, “It’s so COOL that we started our night with a party and cocktails at a juice bar. The world is making shifts in such a good way.”

Plus, Kreation will soon have their liquor license, meaning that there is about to be a sweet new brunch spot in town. Do you know where you’re going to find me every Sunday afternoon from now on if that’s the case…? Not joking. And I say afternoon because obvi I hit up yoga and the farmer’s market every Sunday morning before brunch— balance, duh.

But COLD-PRESSED JUICE MIMOSAS? Yes please.

Also, Kreation just launched on Uber Eats, so if you feel like ordering in versus heading out to their new WeHo location (or any of the westside locations like Montana, Abbott Kinney, Brentwood or Beverly Hills!) you can do that too. I still love my little Brentwood Kreation up the hill from my apartment (literally on my street, actually) but if I am looking for more of a sit-down dining experience or a full meal versus a quick post-workout smoothie, then WeHo is where I will be.

If you live in LA or you’re coming to visit LA soon, you’ve gotta check this spot out. I wouldn’t share it with you if I didn’t 100% believe in it and love what they are doing. Also, do you think I should make “Weekly L.A. Hot Spot” a thing on TBB?! I pretty much already do that in the newsletter each week, but I think it would be a fun weekly installment, kind of like TBV Babe of the Week on Fridays. If so, Kreation is the first weekly hot spot on my list.

And when you’re there, you must get the ENHANCE juice with coconut, coconut water and cacao. Trust me you’ll be in for a major treat. And any / all green smoothies there = amazing.

Hangin’ with the beautiful owner of Kreation, Marjan Sarshar

P.S. Kreation WeHo won major points for me when I popped in there the week that they opened, in the middle of my Carbon38 shoot, and asked them if they would mind blending my protein powder packet from my “Clean” Cleanse Program into a smoothie from their menu. They were super nice about it and blended my packet in without being weird about it. A lot of restaurants develop an attitude in which they would never add something to their food/drink that doesn’t come from in-house, but their laid-back attitude and acceptance really made me happy. I love when a place will do stuff like that. Check them out & show them some love!

ALSO, doing a fun TBV Apparel + Kreation collab very soon, so keep an eye out for that!

More amazing drinkies, food & fun from the party…

It’s happened to me a handful of times in my life, and talking to Brooke Preston was one of them. Brooke is the owner and head chef of The Green Boheme, a raw vegan restaurant in Sacramento. It is the only fully raw restaurant in all of Northern California.

I had been wanting to chat with Brooke ever since I discovered the restaurant last year. I was a new vegan completely spoiled by the raw vegan restaurants in Los Angeles, so whenever I came home to Sacramento I found it very difficult to eat out. Someone told me about this awesome raw food restaurant in the Del Paso area so I decided to give it a try.

Holy yum. It was love at first bite. I mean, look at this Banana Monkey Sundae!!!

Brooke’s story, and her amazingly down to earth and contagious energy, touched my soul when I interviewed her. I absolutely love the fact that she went raw for health reasons and encourages people to go as raw as they are comfortable going, however far that may be.

She urges her friends and family not to worry about her when they eat out because she knows that the true importance of eating out with loved ones is about spending time with them, it’s not about the food. It is so refreshing to talk to such a dedicated raw foodie who has this realistic, selfless and inspirational perspective.

^ Me waiting for the interview, sippin’ on my Black Currant Kombucha! They have Kombucha on tap here. SO. GOOD.

Brooke Preston Interview:

 Q: How long have you been raw?

A: About 7 years now.

Q: How did you get involved with the raw food lifestyle?

A: I became ill with hypothyroidism, and I was not excited about taking medications for the rest of my life so I wanted to look for alternative methods of healing. I went online and ended up on a raw site that talked about how, regardless of your condition, if you are eating a diet of primarily living vegan foods then your body will have the opportunity to heal itself. I thought that made a lot of sense, so started to make the transition almost immediately.

Q: That’s so cool. Is that when you went to culinary school, or had you been a chef before you went raw?

A: I was a chef for about 18 years beforehand. I was on the road to opening an organic corporate lunch delivery service. It was going to have non-packaged, non-preserved, good wholesome organic food including meat and dairy. I honestly thought that was the healthiest way to eat. That’s the way I ate, and I eventually became ill. It really woke me up.

Q: What was it like being raw before starting the restaurant?

A: I was raw completely on my own and realized that was a very hard road. I made a lot of mistakes and I spent a lot of money that I shouldn’t have.

Q: What were some of the initial mistakes that you made?

A: Looking back, I wouldn’t even call them mistakes. It was more of a learning curve. It took a long time and a lot of money to get educated. I didn’t know anything about green juice or green smoothies. I got up and I ate a chocolate avocado pudding every day, and I did all of the programs out there. I did the 80-10-10 diet by Dr. Douglas Graham, then tried various other methods and experimented on my body for a while.

What I learned is that once your system is cleaned out to a certain level, you can truly start to listen to yourself and stop listening to everyone else’s opinion about what you should do. That was pretty profound to me. When we have a lot of toxins in our body, we don’t realize that those voices are not always speaking clearly to us.

Q: And then the restaurant came to be?

I was so passionate about raw I wanted to share it with everybody, so of course I started making food for people, having them over to my place and trying to share the raw experience. I was convinced I was good at making food. I had been a chef for a long time. But I made some awful food when I went raw. I realized that if I’m making some awful things and having to scratch whole recipes, then other people were definitely having the same issue. I thought about how hard it must be for the average person who is not a chef to get going with this and to be successful.

I ended up going to Living Light Culinary Institute soon after that, where I learned how to get the textures and flavors in raw foods that I was missing from my favorite cooked dishes. I also went through a great course on the science behind raw from a nutrition standpoint. I came back and immediately started teaching, and then opened a pick-up window in Midtown. I was able to test the marketplace there and see how many people wanted raw food. I started out in 2008, and even back then people wanted it. There weren’t a ton of people who wanted it, but they wanted it. Then it evolved into this location.

The insanely delicious Wellness Burger with zucchini bacon (it takes four days to make!!!) wrapped in a lettuce “bun”:

Q: How do you think the marketplace in Sacramento compares to raw food in larger cities like LA, NYC and SF?

A: It’s something that’s growing every day. I think the prime motivation is the same thing that motivated me. I got sick, and I didn’t understand why.

Q: Did your illness reverse itself once you went raw?

A: Yes, very quickly. The hypothyroidism dropped off. At the time I had accepted that I was 35, I was getting older, and I just had to deal with it. I was pre-diabetic, took Adderall for ADD, had migraines once a week that I took medication for, I had major seasonal allergies that I took medication for, and I thought that that was all part of the game of life. Now I look back and see that nobody at 35 should have to go through that! There is a lot more to it. Now all of those things are gone. I am 42, and I feel better than ever.

Q: After you went raw and opened the restaurant, did a lot of people in your life become more interested in raw food?

A: Not in my personal life, no. A few. What the restaurant does is bring people in to learn about raw and get exposed to what raw can really taste like and feel like.

Q: What kinds of classes do you offer at the restaurant?

A: Every Tuesday night we have a Dine & Demo where people come in for dinner and I do a live demo of the featured recipe. It’s a super fun event. We always pack the house and it is very community-oriented.

When you’re going into this lifestyle, you don’t usually have a lot of people in your personal world that are committed to raw like you are. So you might feel alone. It’s really cool to have a place to go and reconnect and know that there are other people like you that are like-minded. The restaurant brings grounding to their choices.

On Thursday nights we have our 30-Day Raw Challenge intensive class. We do it almost every month of the year, which we have done for four years. In the series I teach 6 intensive classes about how to go raw in your own kitchen, how to star local and how to optimize your health over the long term.

Q: How did you come up with the name ‘The Green Boheme’?

A: I was in a prayer session with some very dear friends of mine about this food entity, and one of us saw The Green Boheme and then my spiritual mentor, who is also an artist, started to sketch out our logo. That’s what it has been ever since.

Q: Can you walk me through a typical day of your eating schedule?

A: A half cup of a probiotic beverage first thing in the morning, then a 16 oz green juice. In the late morning I usually have a 32 oz green smoothie. Around 2:00 I have my main meal of the day, which is something a little bit more complex. Then late afternoon/early evening I have a snack. It’s pretty normal.

Q: Do you have a favorite dish at the restaurant?

A: It depends. Every day is different. I like the variety. I’m in love with the enchiladas right now (pictured below). Every time I eat one I go, “This is the best thing in the whole world.” And then I go, “Well, there’s this over here too.” So many great options.

(This is when my mom, who had been sitting there listening to us chat while enjoying her delicious raw enchilada, interjected and asked a few questions of her own. Don’t quote me, but I think she was asking these questions because she has wondered these things about ME – her daughter – and really saw an experienced and balanced example in Brooke.)

Q: Has it affected your personal/social life being raw, or not so much because you’re involved in the raw food community?

A: Believe it or not, I’m not really involved with the raw community. We have our own raw community that comes out of the restaurant, but I don’t ever go to raw events. I’m really busy, and because I’m so outward when I’m here I am a very quiet, private person at home. My life is centered around my family.

Also, I’m a firm believer that we shouldn’t be judging people on their food choices. If we happen to help then learn by being an example, then that’s great. I make myself incredibly flexible so for social events and dinners out I always encourage people to not worry about me at all. I’m perfectly happy with that because for me those occasions are not about the food, they’re about the people.

Q: Can you usually find something at a restaurant that you can eat?

A: There have been a few occasions where there is not one thing I can eat or drink on the menu, but I just say, “That’s alright, I had a green juice before I got here.” I’m here to enjoy the people. It’s never a big deal.

Q: Do you know many couples where one partner is raw and one is not?

A: Tons of them. They make it work. I have some guys that are 100% raw and their wives aren’t. They’re the chef in the family, they come through all of our classes, and they make other food for their wives. Or vice versa. I know it seems like a lot of work sometimes, but they’ve made that investment in themselves and they don’t want to let it go.

I always tell people they have to find a balance and figure out how raw they want to be. If it’s impacting their family life too much and it becomes too much of a struggle, then by all means they should have a cooked vegan meal with dinner. If you’re getting your probiotic, your juice and your smoothie in at the first part of the day, then start there. People just freak out when they feel like they can’t be perfect, and the truth is you don’t have to be!

Q: Do you have anything you’d like to add?

A: We are going to be finishing our filming for our 30-Day Raw Challenge that will be going online. It’s available to anyone anywhere, which is very exciting. I really want to make it easy for people to understand and stay focused with what they want to do with the raw goal, whatever that is. There’s so many opinions and so many different ways to go about being raw, it’s good to just have a very level-headed start and then as you research, you take what you feel is important and you let go of what’s not as important.

Now that I am back in New York, dubbed the “raw food capital of the world,” I legitimately dream about the food at The Green Boheme. I cannot wait until next time I’m home to get some delicious raw goodness. And thank you so much, Brooke, for inspiring me to do my Fully Raw February Challenge. I have decided to add in a few cooked vegan dinners here and there, but being raw for at least the first two meals of the day has made me feel fantastic, energized and rebooted.

Visit The Green Boheme online to check out their awesome menu, schedule of events, programs, videos and more.

It was really by stroke of luck that my mom and I stumbled into Hu Kitchen the week she was here moving me in. It is directly next to my school, The New School, so we were in our small range of familiar territory. It was late afternoon and my body was exhausted from fifteen trips to Bed, Bath & Beyond, West Elm, and all of those other fun places you go when you’re moving in. We needed an afternoon pick-me-up, and the big overhanging sign that said “Food For Humans” sounded trustworthy enough.

Keep in mind, as a vegan it’s not easy to happen upon a restaurant and actually be able to eat there. We walked in fully intending for this to be the first stop of many until we wound up at a juice place because nothing else quite fit the bill (healthy + vegan options + good atmosphere). Hu Kitchen far exceeded every one of our expectations.

There is a juice and smoothie counter, an organic bar, a cold case full of yummy food, a hot plate section, a refrigerator full of to-go items, granolas, desserts, etc. and my personal favorite: the mash bar. But we’ll get back to that.

Basically, we were in heaven. As a vegan I am always looking for restaurants that satisfy both my needs and the needs of my friends/family who are not vegan. I ordered a delicious medley of veggies – perfectly seasoned cauliflower, sweet potato bites and broccoli rabe. My mom ordered the chicken, which is her staple dish everywhere we go, and she said it was some of the best she’s ever had. “If not the best,” which is saying a lot, because she’s had some longstanding faves.

Needless to say, I’ve ended up going back to Hu Kitchen more times than I can count. I have dragged all of my friends in the city and my visitors there, and never once has someone been disappointed. People actually beg me to go back… and I never deny!

** Yes, Hu Kitchen is a paleo restaurant while I am vegan, but the paleo diet cuts out dairy, refined sugars and grains, refined salts and processed oils. It is largely plant-based, so it is quite easy for a vegan to find things to eat. Plus, it’s more about being aware of what you’re putting into your body than anything else, and I know I can trust Hu when it comes to the ingredients they use.

I had the privilege of sitting down with Hu Kitchen CEO/Founder Jordan Brown. (Same name, I know. Very cool.) When I first walked in to meet him I asked one of the girls at the mash bar where I could find him, and to my surprise they pointed to a young guy dressed in athletic clothes who was in deep conversation with some customers. I had expected someone much older, so I was immediately impressed.

Jordan ordered me a smoothie and we sat down at one of the tables upstairs. He told me how he became paleo, how he fell into the restaurant business, what his motivations were for starting Hu Kitchen, and everything there is to know about Hu (which, no, is not an Asian name). Here were some highlights of our convo:

Q: How did you fall into the paleo lifestyle?

A: I did investment banking for a year and then I was a real estate developer for 7 years. I was always athletic and in pretty good shape, and I thought I was always eating healthy by eating whole grains and whole wheat and all of those other buzz words. I didn’t really know any better. One day, after a real estate convention in Las Vegas I was in the airport and I was pretty hung over. I hadn’t slept and I drank way too much coffee, so I was in the state of being over-caffeinated and pretty hyped up. I had nothing to do, and I spotted a red book in the airport called “The Ultra Mind Solution” by Dr. Mark Hyman. I love self-help books, but it really wasn’t a self-help book. It was more of a diet book. Not “diet” in the terms that people think of the word diet. It was more of what is causing things like brain fog, diseases of Western society, sluggishness, premature aging. It was about functional medicine.

I didn’t know what any of this stuff was. I didn’t know what gluten was, I didn’t know what blood sugar was, I didn’t know what insulin was, it was just interesting to me, so I devoured the book and decided to try cutting out gluten. It was amazing. I had this skin condition on my arm and my chest for the prior 6 years that I could never really get rid of. I had gone to a bunch of different doctors who told me to take this pill or that, and it would kind of go away and then it would come back. I cut gluten out and it went away in 6-7 days. That was the first indicator of the power of food to heal and to do things that you never really thought were possible. Just by changing what you eat. 

I read a ton of different types of dietary theories and tried them out on myself with isolated variables for two or three week intervals by cutting them out and bringing them back in. Meanwhile, my sister at the time was a typical NYC girl who did tons and tons of cardio and would then have frozen yogurt for dinner or a whole wheat bagel with low-fat cream cheese for dinner and think that she was doing her body good. I would say to her, “you’re having a hundred calorie pack for dinner but you’re eating chemicals and refined sugars that aren’t doing anything for you except for making your work outs useless.” Once she had a child, she started to do the research and she adopted the lifestyle too.

(Jordan & his sister/co-founder Jessica Karp. Photo from NYTimes.com.)

Q: How did you come up with the idea to create a paleo restaurant in NYC?

A: I kept reading more and more and getting more interested. During this time I became kind of a bloodhound for all of the BS terms that the food industry throws on labels. Even in the health food industry, you see the terms “natural,” “healthy,” and “fresh” and it’s a joke. It means nothing. I would look at products and be like that’s such BS. I know what they’re doing.

I came across a book called The Primal Blueprint, which is a paleo book, so I tried that and nothing worked faster and more furiously than those tenets. My sister and I decided to create a brand that’s based on trust. We don’t use any sneaky terms that don’t mean anything, and decided to create something where the goal is to reduce inflammation in the body and keep blood sugar swings at bay as much as possible.

(Photo from www.marksdailyapple.com.)

It’s genuine because we come at this from the customer vantage point. I’m not from the food industry. I had no experience with food, I don’t even know how to cook basically. I knew what I wanted in my food and what I didn’t want in my food, and that’s what we try to do.

Q: Since you were new to the restaurant world before opening Hu, what did you know you wanted in the restaurant and how did you carry that out?

A: We wanted to be a one-stop shop where you could get breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack products, everything. In terms of the aesthetic, we wanted something that was unique. I don’t like straight edges, so that’s why everything in here has kind of rounded edges. We wanted to create a cool spot to come and hang out, somewhere that’s not a very sterile atmosphere like a lot of health food places seem to be for whatever reason. We never liked that and we didn’t want to create that.

The aesthetic should embody a place that you want to be at. It should be in conjunction with the food. The food is more simple and primal, and that’s why I don’t like man-made straight edges. Yeah, we have a lot of technology in here, but it’s a good combination of a rustic urbanism with some good technology.

Q: Does there seem to be a large market in NYC for paleo and veganism?

A: There is a massive market here for paleo and veganism. There is a massive market for people who are tired of being tricked with all these terms that are thrown around that are deceiving and mean nothing.

Q: How do you find organic, trustworthy suppliers?

A: One of the things that bothered me as a consumer was when I would go to a place and see on the menu, “organic when possible,” which often means “organic when we can make the numbers work.” At Hu, we are not 100% organic, and we don’t claim to be.  In my own personal life before Hu, I found it too difficult and expensive to be 100% organic, so I tried to get a handle on what the most important items were for me to go organic – how I could most feasibly remove toxins from entering my body.  At Hu, we have the same approach, and we will not stray from it if the cost of an organic ingredient goes up.  When we say that an ingredient is organic, that means we source USDA-certified organic. In the instances where we can get a supplier who’s truly abiding by organic principles and is either against USDA organic certification or doesn’t want to pay for it, and if they’re willing to put in writing that they abide by organic practices, then we’ll buy it and label it as not certified but verified in writing. In my experience since we launched last year, many suppliers were not entirely honest about their practices being organic. So we can’t stand behind those products with a good conscience.

Q: What oils do you cook with?

A: We cook with a coconut oil and olive oil (but not on direct heat). Direct high heat we don’t use olive oil because it makes it go rancid really quickly. We don’t use any canola oil here, which most places do. They typically use GMO canola oil, which is very cheap. Or they use the poor quality oils like cottonseed oils, but that’s more fast food type of places I believe.

Q: Most popular vegan dishes?

A: People love our Grandmaster Veg. It’s kind of like a vegetable lasagna, but on top it doesn’t have a weird vegan cheese. It’s just our cashew cream on top. People also love our chocolate bars (which are vegan) – our almond butter puffed quinoa bar is the most popular. There is no dairy, soy or emulsifiers in it whatsoever.

My awesome dinner at Hu a few nights ago – carrot arugula salad, sweet potato bites, green juice, graham crackers & their newest flavor of chocolate!

Q: Tell me about the mash bar.

A: The mash bar came about because that’s how I used to snack. I would come home and I wouldn’t want to get frozen yogurt or health bars because a lot of them are just candy bars. So I would go to Whole Foods, get a bunch of different ingredients like fruit, coconut, cacao nibs, honey, almond butter, whatever I could find, mash it up, and that was my snack. So we decided to commercialize that and turn it into the mash bar.

Q: How did Hu get its name?

A: We basically didn’t know what kind of name we wanted. At the time I was reading a lot of paleo books on different anthropological food studies. We wanted to do something that involved human. Someone suggested Hu, and it was kind of awesome. A little mysterious. A lot of people do think it’s an Asian restaurant. We ran with it. Very simple.

(Fun fact: The “u” in Hu is based off of Jordan’s hand!)

** If you live in the NYC area, check out Hu. You won’t be disappointed! You might see me in there getting a juice and a chocolate bar post-yoga or grabbing some veggies before class, and you’ll definitely see Jordan (the other Jordan) chatting with people and running the show. If you see either of us, please do say hi

The BEST chocolate bars of all time. Guilty of eating these for dinner from time to time.