Candle Café, New York

Candle Café is an incredible work-in-progress made good. Located in the Seventies on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it began life as a health food store. The previous owners would light candles each night to bless the place. Apparently it worked. In 1984, the new owner, Bart Potenza, liked the idea so well that he renamed it the Healthy Candle and continued with the location’s tradition of health food, this time introducing a juice bar. Inspired by the culinary mission, Mr. Potenza, and now Joy Pierson, a customer and friend who became on-site nutritionist, expanded their menu to a full-service juice bar and café. Thus Candle Café is born.

welcome to Candle Café

Candle Café juice bar

This place is vegetarian, vegan, eco-friendly and strives to be green. But don’t let that put you off one bit. The food is excellent and the atmosphere, a mixture of crunchy granola meets bistro, seems startlingly refreshing, welcoming and original in the chaos of New York. And frankly, it is tough to get decent veggies while traveling and eating out constantly. So this is a happy change from the average dining experience.

The menu reminded us a bit of Plant Café Organic in San Francisco, though the atmosphere here is much less stylized. There was a large mechanical candle that looks like some sort of purple Christmas decoration and a small gurgling fountain at the entrance. I adored all the bumper stickers on the front door promoting healthy living, healthy eating, the whole nine-yards: “Coexist,” “Be Kind to Animals Don’t Eat Them,” “Support Organic Farmers,” “Hey GMOs stop trying to get in my plants.”

politically inspired bumper stickers at Candle Café

Candle Café interior

Inside is the large-ish juice bar on the left with tables leading to the back. Everything was finished in lovely wood with lots of calming fabrics on the walls in soothing earthtones.

We had just walked over from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a charming stroll past stunning residences and Madison Avenue boutique shops. By the time we arrived all of us were hungry for a late afternoon lunch.

We started with an order of guacamole and organic Pinkus Hefe-weizen as we examined the menu.

Candle Café guacamole

I tried the chipotle grilled tempeh. It comes with greens, a quinoa pilaf with mango salsa, black bean sauce and chipotle coulis. The dish sounds all over the map but worked really well. I enjoyed it quite a lot and I think that Hegui is still sad that he didn’t order this himself (though I did share, a little).

Instead he had the Candle Café veggie burger with fries, which he liked but found less memorable. Michelle and Luis had the Tuscan lasagna and tofu with veggies. The first comes with grilled zucchini, peppers and onions with a tofu basil ricotta and seitan ragout in tomato sauce. You can hardly tell this dish is dairy-free it was that good. The tofu with broccoli etc. sort of speaks for itself.

chipotle grilled tempeh

Candle Café veggie burger with fries

Tuscan lasagna

tofu with broccoli and veggies

Michelle pleaded with us to try the famous Candle Café desserts but we just couldn’t do it. Next time, Michelle, for certainly this is a must-try New York restaurant that’s well worth visiting again.