"and for an entree we shared the cashew cheese ravioli."
(in 25 reviews)
"the mezze platter was the best raw appetizer i've ever had."
(in 13 reviews)
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Cru
Rating Details »
Categories: Vegan, Vegetarian, Live/Raw Food [Edit]
Neighborhood: Silver Lake1521 Griffith Park Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(323) 667-1551
- Hours:
Mon-Thu. 5:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Fri-Sat. 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Fri-Sat. 5:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sun. 5:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
- Parking:
- Street
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- No
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- None
119 reviews for Cru
Review Highlights
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Cru is by far the best vegan/raw restaurant in this neighborhood.
Best raw in this city.
Must be careful with "the entire raw concept" at any restaurant. A temperature issue that is oft argued. Cru pays attention.
Staff is polite and helpful. The food is delicious. Although, take a mirror. Way too easy to get stuff stuck in your teeth. Grin, oh no. Odd tiny black fragments in your teeth.
I had a great mushroom risotto here, and some nice guacamole with flax seed chips (which were super-yum). It is a bit pricey, but truly delicious, and you walk away feeling very healthy and full of veggie goodness. Always good to know of vegetarian places.
Thumbs up.
Mmmmm, love Cru. I live close by, so sometimes i just stop by to get take out there, but I have also eaten in the resturant. The space is very small, so you sometimes have to wait if you do go in, but it's worth it.
They change some menu items seasonally. Right now they have this mushroom dish over mashed sweep potatoes that is to die for. Seriously, so much flavor. It is on the cooked menu (not raw) and they make it fresh for you, so it does take a bit longer than some of the other dishes, but totally worth it.
Staff is great and super friendly.
Take a Xanax or meditate, or do whatever you do to relax before you even try driving around the hills looking for parking for this place. The homes in this area all cost over a million dollars but you will feel like you have crossed the rail road tracks in to the bad part of town while trying to park.
The inside of Cru is a small, romantic little place with some closely spaced tables. The meze platter is my favorite thing there. My non-vegan friend had the chorizo tostadas and said he liked them better than regular ones. That is pretty high praise coming from a carnivore. The ice creams and cheese cake are outstanding!!!
My first visit to Cru was last year. I didn't remember much about the food but remembered the absolute irritation and exasperation I experienced tying to find a parking space. There is only street parking and not a lot of that. Same situation the second and third visit to Cru. One of those visits also had a wait to be seated at the restaurant since they only take reservations for parties of 6 or more and have only 2 dozen seats.
But I am here to tell you it is worth all this drama to eat at Cru. But the best way to avoid the parking situation is to come over for lunch on Friday. Lots of parking!!!
Now on to the food. The tostada is wonderful!! The first and only raw tostada I have tasted with a corn tortilla not some type of cracker. Topped with and combination of cool, creamy, crunchy, with just the right amount of spice.
The Mezzo platter makes a great meal or shared appetizer. At last a pate that I enjoy: dense and rich.
Desserts are flavorful but not overly sweet including the lemon cheesecake and the special of the the day: triple layer chocolate and coconut cheesecake. I find their chocolate truffle cake a little too rich and dense for me. More like a candy truffle than a cake. But it will put all chocaholics into a deep coma.
This is the best vegan food I have ever tasted.
Super nice staff. A little pricey but not considering the quality.
Everyone loves Cru! I am a mostly raw vegan and wanted a yummy cake for my birthday to make my birthday (flanked by major law school assignments) a little brighter. I called Cru on pretty short notice to see if my cake dreams could be made a reality (without paying the $100 I would have needed to shell out for a cake from Euphoria Loves Rawvolution). They only had their truffle cakes on hand, but agreed to make me a lemon cheesecake. They were so accommodating and rushed the cake so that I could pick it up on my way home from my mid-term (before the restaurant had even opened for dinner). They threw fresh strawberries on top of my cake to make it extra yummy too.
I took with me both the fig and walnut-pomegranate pate with flax-pumpkin seed crackers to serve with wine earlier in the night, and some minty cookies n cream-esque ice cream. I then served the pate and the cake to straight up carnivores who squirm at the idea of raw vegan foods (glib comments like "if its raw why is it worth eating?" or "is it made of grass"), but when they tasted the walnut crust and smooth lemony coconut cake they were speechless. "This is really really good," a guy friend said to me, "I would want this again." My meat loving foodie girl friends too were in awe of the Cru cake's splendor.
**I need to note also that the pate was unreal, really Cru outdid itself, and their cashew ice creams are the best of any I have had, they are smooth not icy like some cashew ice creams (and as a former ice cream addict, I grab vegan ice cream that isn't soy whenever I see it)
Another thing I would like to note is that everyone who works at Cru is just super cool. The people on the phone are always so friendly, and the waiter who I always see there is witty, attentive, knowledgeable about the food.
Cru is also a beautiful little spot, dim with big windows. It is great for catching up with friends, dates or to eat great food with family/friends from out of town. Show them one of LA's gems.
Thanks Cru, I do really love you, and you are reasonably priced too.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
-
8/9/2009
Cru is fantastic. I have been here once for dinner and once to take away dessert (which I am not… Read more »
So I type in "vegetarian" in to my yelp search bar and "Cru" is one of the first restaurants that pop up in Los Angeles. So I bookmark it, and 3 other restaurants that I potentially wanted to hit up last night. There are actually a few other vegetarian restaurants down Sunset Blvd but this is the first one to catch my eye.
So I circle like twice (street parking) and walk across the street to the restaurant. The place looks pretty big on the outside but its really just a cute tiny room on the inside. I ordered the quinoa and spinach risotto and my friend got the spring rolls. The food was very good but the portions weren't kind of small. I guess you appreciate the food art rather than a full or at least content stomach.
Overall the staff was very nice and they even let us sit down and eat in a couple minutes before closing. (I don't like to do this but I thought that they were going to be open for much longer). The atmosphere was cool, but unfortunately the experience wasn't memorable. It was mehtastic at best. The Mexican restaurant across the street started to look really good but I went home and had a bowl of cereal instead.
Wow, all i can say is YUM!! I'm new to the rawvolution, but this place is so creative with their menu, it's almost a non issue. They also have some cooked vegan options, but we opted for the full raw experience. The owner, Rachael, is SO friendly and willing to chat about the food. We had a great meal, and some great conversation. Can't wait to go back.
Ughh, my friend C forced me to go out to dinner with her at a raw food restaurant. Normally, not my jam. I'm as healthy as the next salad-eating Angeleno, but I love ... real food. From ovens. Long story short, I broadened my horizons. Hooray?
Great vibe, homey little *tiny* restaraunt. Friendly and helpful wait staff. SUPER yummy kale apple lime juice. ditto for the curry squash soup. Then I had the pesto ravioli for my entree, and my dining partner in crime had the pad thai. I ... was a little put off by the 'cashew cheese' but the pad thai was yummy, but with a far crunchier texture than a 'real' pad thai.
However, we both ended up with awful stomach aches after our meal! I would like to hope its not that my entire body is so addicted to crap-ola reacting to healthy food, so .... who knows. Just sayin'
I had dinner here on my 28th birthday with small group of close friends. Almost all of them are meat lovers. They hated Cru. Not so much hated it, but didn't understand why anyone would purposely eat here when there is a Wings Street nearby. Damn those cheese eating assholes. I hope they die of diabetes and heart attacks.
Cru is expensive, but all raw food is expensive. It's par for the course. Recommended if you like delicious vegetarian.
this place is delicious!!!
but you don't get full unless you spend alot of $.
i got the raw ravioli and it was 5 little pieces....didn't even put a dent in my hunger:) and it was 15 bucks.
the atmosphere is great...and so was the experience. i just had to get a coffee and desert at Casbah cafe down the street afterwards to feel full.
Yet another Goodbye review! Goodbye Dave C. and goodbye raw food! (although maybe boston will have raw food options? I'm sure not as much as LA does!!)
This was my first raw food experience, and Dave and I definitely got our samples worth! If I did raw food again, the squash soup was exciting for my tastebuds! I loved every single slurp of that soup! It could have been a hair warmer, but man, the flavor, the pizazz, that small dabble of cream on top of it?? Who would have thought raw food would have so much flavor!!
The pumpkin seek chorizo rolls were great too! And being a meat love myself, it actually kind of reminded me of meat! amazing! A little messy in the eating process, but again great spices, and we all need a little more spice in our lives, especially since the spice girls aren't coming out with anything else new!
Dave's curry dish totally kicked my pad thai dish's buttocks. The pad thai, even though our waitress said it was one of the more popular dishes, was SO SO HEAVY it made me feel like a big fat hippo! Every bite just weighed me down.....And then there was Dave happily eating his curry :-) Yes, I was jealous that portion of our meal ha
And the other highlight?? Coolest sink ever in the bathroom complete with a wind chime hanging from the apex center of the ceiling in there!! Having a good bathroom is always a bonus, always.
I read the reviews before coming here and most mentioned parking was tricky. I thought, "that doesn't matter cause i'm one of those people that always finds parking." So I went and decided to park on a side street--bad idea. It was really sketchy and two girls walking on that street at night is a death wish. So, we walked into the restaurant and it was a lot smaller than I thought. We were seated at a booth but I felt like we were really close to the party next to us. The whole time, all I could hear was their conversation. Although it was enlightening to hear about Junior's Barmitzva, I'd like to bypass that next time.
We ordered the shitake ravioli and, to me, it tasted like uncooked air. For desert, we ordered the chocolate cake, which was more of a giant hunk of pure dark chocolate which was way to rich and not very delicious. For the prices, I expect more.
What I love about raw food is the way it forces chefs to be more innovative in the preparation process. Cru had a really interesting menu - reading the ingredients was almost as exciting as eating the food!
There was no wait for a table on a Tuesday night. The restaurant was small and charming. One server took care of all the tables and he was very attentive.
The Dream Roll appetizer was really tasty - with kim chee, avocado, jicama, spicy mushrooms, and seaweed all wrapped in a collard leaf. The dish had all sorts of textures happening inside of it and was really pleasant to eat. My entree, which was a raw ravioli dish, was presented beautifully and tasted incredible! The ravioli were cold, which was an interesting sensation. They were filled with a delicious cashew cheese and garnished with diced heirloom tomatoes and chives; then drizzled with oil.
The best thing about the food was that it actually filled me up in a way that surpassed what I would expect for a raw vegan meal. I definitely recommend this place for a casual date or dinner with a small group of friends!
Cru was very good, despite some hit or miss dishes for me. I know that some people probably would have loved everything here, but we (Sarah G. and me) happened to get a couple dishes we weren't crazy about, but we had a few that we really liked.
GET:
Pumpskin seed chorizo rolls
Squash Soup
The Curry
Not crazy about:
Pad Thai (a little heavy)
Miso (too much freakin ginger, my mouth was killing me)
This was my first trip to a raw restaurant, even though I'm vegetarian. Overall, it was a really good experience and our server was really nice. They also have a bathroom, even though it doesn't look like it is one. There's plenty of street parking within walking distance and I enjoyed the laid back ambiance. Neat spot and I will definitely be back!
I may get a bashing from others seeing that my average 3-star rating is not up to par with others, but this is the way I feel.
The food was decent and lovely eye-catching plate presentation indeed, but honestly it's not something I, personally, would rave about. I am not vegetarian or follow a raw food diet, but I do enjoy cuisines of all sorts. This establishment is definitely a place to give it a try and perhaps come up with your own review.
Other than the food, the ambiance was beautiful and the service was great!
I love this place! I'm just bummed they aren't open during the week for lunch anymore:( This is when I used to go so now I don't go too often anymore. Collard green cashew wraps are the bomb!
Wow.
This was the first time I ever had raw food. Quite impressive and innovative. As far as prices goes, I think the preparation and food quality makes up for it in a way. [I've had to make vegan cheescake. It costs me so much more than making reg. cheesecake!]
Thumbs up to the guacamole.
The lady gives thumbs up to her dish: ravioli cruda. It was her first time eating jicama and was surprised how much she likes it.
My dish was the channa dal. It was amazing. Even had enough to take home.
We'll definitely come again to try the other things. As far as her ravioli goes, it was such a psychological test for the senses being used to the real ravioli and whole goop of sauce. It tasted fresh and delicious. mmmm
where is my leftover....
[a good place for a date and to try new food. cozy and warm ambience. parking sucks if you drive there though]
I just discovered something wonderful at my neighborhood Whole Foods that has been keeping me up all day and night:
Cru's CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE CAKE!!!
Made with deliciously dark chocolate and an almond studded crust, this cake will make you forget the fact that it's made of entirely raw vegan ingredients. The best part? It's guilt free! Raw desserts RAWK! (Bad pun, sorry)
Oh, and when I said that this thing has been keeping me up day and night, I meant it. Literally. I think it's the raw cacao powder in it; doesn't cocoa have caffeine-like substances in it? Idk. Whatever is in it, I feel like I just drank 10 cups of coffee.
The truffle cake is incredibly rich and dense, so eating just one bite of it is equivalent to eating 5 bites of a regular chocolate cake. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop me. Addictive personality; I can't help it. I'm almost finished with my slice of truffle cake (I'm actually eating it right now), and my heart is racing in caffeine over-drive. On the upside, it's making me type really fast.
***** IF YOU WANT MULTIPLE FOOD-GASMS, GO TO CRU!!! *****
This place is un-freakin' believable!!! Between bites (aka inhaling food, shoveling food, etc), I was texting my friend about how amazing the food was here.
*** FOOD ***
I had the Shiitaki Ravioli which comes with seven cashew cheese raviolis and a sweet miso cream sauce with a side of arugula salad. Washed it down with a green drink and had some kind of apricot deliciousness for dessert. MIND-BLOWING DELICIOUS!!! It was so good that I ordered the Pesto Ravioli to go but she thought I ordered the Pesto Wrap. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this til I got home, but no worries - I'm sure it'll be great. Gives me yet another reason to go back to Cru. I don't even know how to describe how gorgeous the food was plated or how good the food was. I literally wanted to order everything on the menu. I am definitely going to eat my way through the menu.
I love a good challenge.
Green drink is SUPER YUMMY. Nice and cold and perfectly sweet with a strong banana influence. So good, I ordered one more for to go.
I heard about Cru from buying their Mint Pistachio Ganache at Whole Foods. Can't say that I was a fan of that particular dessert as it was incredibly dense (yes, I know, I know - it's ganache, what do you expect). It was aight - will just opt for the Chocolate Truffle Cake next time though when I'm at Whole Foods.
*** PARKING ***
In a word: sucks. But this lil raw gem is so worth the hunt for street parking. Interesting neighborhood . . .
*** AMBIANCE ***
Small, dimly lit and perfect. I just absolutely LOVE finding lil hole in the wall places. Restaurants that have the worst parking, often have the most amazing food. Sleek, contemporary, semi-industrial-chic design. It is a tiny place so I felt like that as soon as I walked in, I alerted all the other diners of my arrival. (My social anxiety / social awkwardness kicked into overtime.) "Table for one please."
I quickly opt for the closet table that easily accommodated my party of one. Of course I would choose the table that had a candle that was not lit. Of course! During my meal, I swapped candles with the next table that was next to me (it was empty of course).
*** PRICE ***
Ah - I cam here by myself and ate (or at least ordered enough) for two. Total bill came out to a little over $60. Ouch. Plus tip and wowzerz, I wish they did serve alcohol. It is a bit pricey but the food is absolutely delicious. Makes for a great date restaurant.
Cru, thank you for making my first raw food experience enjoyable. The service and food were great AND you don't have corkage fees!
I went with three other people so we were able to order several things to try. We started off with the curry squash soup and the mezze plate and then split four entrees: shitake mushroom ravioli, chickpea fritters, pad thai, and the risotto. The curry squash soup was absolutely delightful with a very mild heat from the curry but was slightly warm, does this still count as raw or does change its properties? The mezze plate allowed us to try a sampling of spreads that were fashioned after their cheese and meat friends. Our favorite of the dishes was the cashew cheese, although I prefer cheese made with dairy, this was actually pretty tasty. The fig pate was less successful as it had more in common with a Fig Newton than with delicious chicken liver spread. Then we moved on to the entrees...
The chickpea fritters were a bit greasy and lacking of any strong flavors, maybe a little salt would help. However, the accompanying "sour cream" had great consistency and added a welcome bit of flavor and even a mild heat. The risotto was made with quinoa, which was slightly more grainy and dry than I like. It also could have used a few more cooked shitake mushrooms to punch up the savory element. The pad thai was made with kelp noodles, since this is also a gluten-free restaurant. The piquancy of the pad thai increased as we got to the bottom of the bowel since the kelp noddles were allowed to soak up more of the spice. The noodle texture was not ideal but the sauce definitely furthered my enjoyment of the dish. The shitake mushroom ravioli was by far our favorite since it was filled with the aforementioned cashew cheese. I'm not sure what the noodles were made out of but they were cooked al dente, a perfect pasta texture for a gluten-free ravioli. All in all, we were surprised that we enjoyed the meal as much as we did, given we are meat and dairy lovers. I probably won't crave Cru in the future, but this is only because I prefer my ravioli filled with some yummy meat and ricotta cheese.
I am a big fan of the Pad Thai. It's kinda heavy though - so be warned - but it's delicious. The flavors are great! (I do take-out sometimes and add lots of hot sauce and lime).
That Chorizo-Pumpkin seed roll thing is quite outstanding as well. Yum yum yum.
I'm with the other fans - it is a little pricey, but raw cuisine is very labor-intensive and the ingredients are not always your average run-of-the-mill stuff, and therefore costs a little more. I'm willing to pay the extra few bucks every now and again though. I think I'm just nervous that this place will fold and then where will I get my raw Pad Thai fix?! I don't got time to make that shit! (Labor-intensive! Remember?)
Parking sitch is bad. Give yourself some time to find a spot if you're trying to make a date.
yummy!!! it smells like grass and vegetable juice in here, like all raw places, but it's tiny and candlelit! and thank god it's not thai-vegan...i'm so sick of those greasy places.
so, yes, the Mezze platter IS really good and you have to get that. i'd recommend ordering a bunch of stuff for the table and sharing it all. there was 4 of us and each appetizer and entree was enough for each of us to have our fair share before moving on to the next.
the walnut chorizo sausage was really good as was the mushroom risotto...which was neither mushroomy nor risotto-y. it tasted more like coconut and had a better texture than normal risotto.
the pizzas shouldn't really be called pizzas and will not satisfy a pizza craving. at all. they're good but the name can be misleading. maybe if the hawaiian pizza was called "pineapple faux cheese cracker" it would be more warmly excepted.
i don't normally do dessert but since it's all healthy and shit, i did. oh and it's good. real good. even the chocolate cake that people describe as a brick of dark chocolate is worth a try...and i'm not big on chocolate. definitely get the cheesecake with ice cream. doi.
service and ambience is an A+ and DON"T FORGET TO BRING WINE!
So delicious! The best raw and vegan food I've ever had!
The Greek Wrap is sooooooo good! I don't generally like olives but it's so fantastic in this wrap.
Try the cooked quinoa with mushrooms and spinach cooked in coconut oil. To die for! Serious ... I'm craving it now.
And the chocolate cake a la mode!!!! Vegan ice cream? Can't even tell.
Be there!
Best raw food in the nation. Killing raw chocolate cake. Don't miss it.
I dropped by here to order some food to go and the place was so small that I pretty much interrupted all 12 people eating there's dinner. Or they might have just been confused by my outfit, which I'll admit, was one of my more confusing ones. Or they might have been curious about my attempt to order most of the menu for myself with the justification that it was my first time and I had to try everything.
A helpful server calmed my excitement and I was able to narrow it down to the quinoa risotto that comes with a side salad. The portion was probably what a normal person should eat, so of course I assumed I would starve the second I saw it. But actually it was the perfect amount.
I haven't eaten dairy in 3 years and yet, I was almost positive I had cheated after eating this. I'm going to try everything on the menu, just not all at the same time since nobody seemed to think that was a good idea. Jerks.
The first thing I noticed when we entered was that the whole place is smaller than the glovebox in a Fiat. For some reason I had a vision that it was going to be a typical hip and trendy Silverlake joint but classier, probably from the constant mention of the high prices. Not so much it turns out: a couple of pendant lamps, some Pier One fake asian amoires and a dying tree later and that pretty much rounds out the decor.
I'm always willing to try anything new, but let's be clear as we go over the food. I'm a rabid carnivore, I don't really consider it a meal unless there is some sort of meat, fish or poultry involved. So what better way to prove myself wrong than to go the whole nine yards and go raw vegan. Let's start with this, if you are vegan you should read peoples reviews with similar tastes for a more similar perspective.
I had an inkling I was in trouble when I read over the menu and came across the "wheat free, gluten free, no refined sugar or animal products" statement in big letters on the menu. I'm of the firm belief that the better food tastes, the less good it is for you and normally wild horses couldn't drag me through the door (unless I could cook them and eat them) but we were celebrating a dear friends birthday and she really loves this place. For the record, she isn't vegan and quite enjoys it here.
We opted to try a number of dishes to sample different things. The starter dish was Miso soup, except it wasn't. You would think that a vegan place would do a decent version of Miso soup but here it had such an odd sour aftertaste from too much ginger that shouldn't be there that I gave up. It was also filled with too many mushrooms. Miso soup like all Japanese food should be delicate, light and with just a hint of ingredients.
Next came Mezze, the definite highlight of the meal. Clumps of fresh parsley, a dollop of hummus, a small amount of fig pate, red beets, and some pretty good bread. I'd like to say it's sesame bread but I have no idea, but it was good, a nice crispness to offset the faint sweetness of the beets and the thickness of the hummus. The fig pate was easily the most flavorful element of any of the plates we ordered. Quietly delicious. Third was Caponata Bruschetta. Nicely done, worthwhile if not exactly memorable.
The entrees were less outstanding. I mistakenly ordered the Raw Shiitake Ravioli because I thought our friend had recommended it. Unfortunately she had said to order the Mushroom Quinoa Rissotto plate because the ravioli was bland. And it was bland, it was ravioli and yet it wasn't. It's nicely presented, six dainty ravioli surrounded by greens and top with a light sauce. Sadly the sauce was flavorless, and the cashew filling even more so making each ravioli taste like a little clump of nothing. Reading through the reviews lots of people seem to like this, however it tastes nothing like a genuine ravioli plate of any kind. We also ordered a Sweet Pesto Wrap. This is a cooked plate, with sweet potatoes, peas and other veggies and a vaguely spicy curry sauce. Again, nicely presented and better than the ravioli but nothing special. Even if it had some type of meat in it, the flavor was just adequate. There are literally hundreds of Indian restaurants in the city, even average ones, that make a tastier version of this.
In fact, herein lies my problem with the whole concept here. The menu is an amalgram of different cuisines from around the world but to what effect. There are Greek, Italian, Thai, Latin, Vietnamese and Japanese plates among others on the menu, yet none of them taste anything like what their genuine counterparts do. The most successful dishes here are the ones that would be vegan anywhere. The salads, bruschetta, and appetizers were good, in some cases great but once you wander into the entrees things go downhill quickly.
That's not just me, a pair of gentlemen came in after us and ordered the Pad Thai. We asked how it was and this is what we got: It's really good, but it doesn't taste anything like Pad Thai. So for me, what's the point of this?
We ended with a Chocolate Truffle cake and a Lemon Cheesecake. The Truffle cake was insanely dense, almost pure cocoa but not dramatically different from regular chocolate cake. It was quite tasty. The cheesecake was less successful for me, although the rest of our table liked it. For me it tasted nothing like Cheesecake, had the wrong texture and little flavor. It wasn't particularly sweet, which the rest of my party found refreshing.
The service was lacking for us, the waitress seemed uninterested, didn't refill drinks and left our empty plates on the table for a good twenty minutes and six trips by before she finally cleared them. The prices are as advertised, insanely high for what you get, or don't get. Still, the best vegan food I've had in my limited experience with it.
Food - B/B+
Ambience - C
Service - C-
Value - D
I HEART CRU!!!!!
The atmosphere is calm, the restaurant smells incredible (you'll notice as soon as you walk in!), the staff are knowledgeable and courteous, and the food is fantastic!
I brought two omnivores with me for my first Cru experience. We ordered the hummus platter, and the server didn't hesitate when we asked for more hummus. We ordered the shiitake mushroom ravioli, the pesto wrap, and asked the server to pick one more item from the raw menu. He came back with the Mezze Platter! We inhaled our meals, so delicious!!
Then we ordered dessert.
Chocolate Truffle Cake, and Cheesecake.
OH. MY. GOD. HEAVEN!!!!!
One of my friends went back the very next night with another non-vegetarian, and they had the same fantastic experience - this time trying the Pasta Primavera. Zucchini and coconut! Yum :)
I had the pesto wrap with sweet potato chips. It was pretty good. No complaints, but the real treat came with dessert.
Out comes the chocolate cake with cookies 'n' cream gelato and it was all over. My friend and I devoured it. YUM!
And the best part is that at the end of the meal I did not come out feeling gross and bloated. To a certain extent, it's very healthy.
Friendly service, nice people, friendly customers (yes, I did strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to us) and good food! What more could a girl ask for?
My boyfriend and I ordered Mezze Platter ($13.00) that has beet, apple salad, black mission fig, herbed cashew cheese, kale, cucumber salad with flax pumpkin seed crackers as a starter; it was amazing! I also ordered Shiitake Mushroom Ravioli ($16.00), which was exquisite! Everyone should try this Ravioli! He ordered Mushroom Risotto. Lemon Cheesecake with Creme Fraiche and Fresh Berries ($8.00) for a dessert; it was really good but a bit too sweet with coconuts. I really liked the ambience. The service was very friendly and nice. We can't afford Cru too often, however, I would love to go back there to try other menus next time.
I'm a meat eater who loves cheese and eggs. I don't do raw or vegan, but after eating at Cru, I think I might change my mind. I came here Sunday night (Mother's Day) with my mom-in-law and husband since mom-in-law wanted something healthy, and I figured, what's healthier than raw food? Since it was Mother's Day there was a special menu that night. We ended up ordering:
Tunisian Mezze Plate - Yum!
Raw Chickpea Soup - Spicy, room temperature so was kind of weird, but good.
Strawberry Cucumber Mint Salad - Drool.
Raw Ravioli - Ok. Tasted like air.
Raw Lasagna - Goooood. The "pasta" part of the lasagna was actually strips of zucchini, which I thought was clever.
Cooked Risotto - Better than other risotto I've had at non-vegan/raw places.
Apricot Ice Cream - More like sorbet, but very flavorful.
I'm definitely going to come back and try out their regular menu items.
To be fair, I've never been into the raw food thing. (What's wrong with heat, again?) However, I went with a friend because of the good reviews, it was close to the hair salon and my carnivore-brother's insistence that he's never had a bad raw food experience.
Ironically, my friend and I both ordered cooked entrees. I had the sweet potato chickpea curry with quinoa, which was actually quite tasty. Filling without being too heavy. And it had a nice little kick to it. For a starter, I had the chilled cucumber soup. Eh...but whaddaya expect from cucumbers. My friend had a delicious vegetable bruschetta. Of course, it would've been even better on some real bread instead of the weird "cracker". While the food was pretty good and the service just fine, I still only give it three stars because sometimes I just want to eat a brownie, not a "brownie".
Old review...I've been trying to be healthier lately!!!
EVERYONE SHOULD!! I AM GOING TO BE 27 SOON!! What does that mean?? I don't know but it doesn't sit very well with me even though it is my other favorite number!! ;(
"Who am I kidding? I am soooo not a vegetarian, vegan or whatever other veggie related nominal title there may be of foodies. Actually, I never order salads ever!! Maybe tuna, potato, macaroni or pasta salads...although i do like tabouli! But ya, seriously, i didn't like this place all that much but then again it's not really my element. But i don't want to hate too much on it, i respect those who have the discipline and i'll be nice and write a nerdy descriptive review anyways.
The entrée:
I ordered the pesto ravioli which came with 10 pieces of ravioli nicely overlapping and lining each other down the middle of the plate and a side salad which was placed to the sides of the vertically lined ravioli. According to Jennifer L., the inside of the ravioli was made of cashew nut butter and jicama. Later, the waiter added that there was basil and chives mixed into the concoction. When I cut my first piece of ravioli in halves and took a bite, the first taste to hit my palate was the pesto sauce which consisted of nuts, basil, cilantro and olive oil. The second taste was the sweetness of the jicama which was not too strong but it was noticeable enough for one to know that fruit had to have been one of the main ingredients. The inside is a bit dry because there is no milk added to this butter but it was moist enough to keep its molded texture. What the? No milk in butter??
The side salad consisted of arugula leaves, pomegranate pieces and what looked like toasted pumpkin seeds?? The pieces of pomegranate definitely added a refreshing escape to the taste buds away from the stern green flavor of the arugula leaves (it's a bit too pungent for me; other tastes to describe it could be "bitter" or "peppery").
Seriously, after finishing my meal, I had this weird jicama taste that left my esophagus a bit itchy. I even woke up to write this review because I still feel the weirdness in my stomach!!
Inside Cru, there are about 5 tables, each lit with a candle center piece. The place is rather small but very cozy and intimate. There was just one waiter and he may have also been the cook as well. The prices aren't that expensive at all. One thing to know is that everything at Cru is based on the raw-vegan diet.
"The raw-vegan diet consists of fruits, vegetables, sprouted grains and legumes, seeds and nuts. Raw-vegan food is considered healthy because of its living enzymes. The enzymes in food aid in digestion and are destroyed at 118 degrees of heat. Therefore in order to digest cooked food your body has to use its own metabolic enzymes which takes energy from your body and leaves you feeling sluggish. Heating also depletes food of vitamins and minerals which is why cooked food is thought to lead to excessive food consumption in the body's attempt to gain adequate nutrition." (from http://About.com because I don't know anything about the raw-vegan diet, not my kinda thing sorry).
So I came here for a Veggie UYE. I liked the yelpers but not so much the food or the place. The overall experience was mediocre. Eating here only reaffirmed my love affair with MEAT!! Well, now I know what I don't like! Honestly, I really didn't like it, the food or the place....i would not come back here at all, I am not a raw-vegan type of person and I don't think I ever will be...I should have went to Gloria's to celebrate Nada's ROTD. But don't take my word for it...check it out yourself!!"
Creative menu, controlled portions, satisfying combination of ingredients, attentive, kind servers. Note: Parking totally and utterly sucks. But that's LA I suppose.
Cucumber bisque was uneventful - too watery - I think the texture lacked and they should reconsider the recipe. Arrowroot? Organic cornstarch? Something.
Mezze platter was a winner. Pad thai with kelp noodles was my favorite dish of the evening.
I'm not a raw or vegan food fan, but I tried this place and was kinda blown away. I ordered the sweet potato curry -- it was so flavorful all the way to the last bite. My lactose/gluten intolerant wife was, of course, in heaven with their menu. The chocolate cake was rich and yummy, not what we expected.
However, be expected to pay at least 50% more for this food, and the portions are not huge. Not exactly recession friendly.
I've passed by this numerous times with its huge ORGANIC VEGETARIAN sign....screaming out at you..... But this is probably an unfair rating since I was allergic to about 80% of the menu. But the waiter was kind enough to accommodate with my limitations and managed to order me a "pizza" with a salad. Anxiously waiting with hunger, I finally get the damn thing and it was fig with veggies on top. Not exactly my cup of tea.....especially since the bill came out to almost $20. WOWZA.
I finally got a hold of some carbs to reboot my low energy and informed my best friend about my visit to this restaurant. She then informed me that it was a raw vegan restaurant. Welll that makes ALOT of sense. I was unaware of these signs at that moment since I was dying of hunger running into the nearest convenient restaurant.
Can't complain on the service nor atmosphere but I just don't dig the raw food. As if being a peanut allergic vegetarian isn't hard enough.....
I had savored the world's most delicious and spectacular foods--glistening mangosteens, rambutans, litchis piled on plates in Arabia like the genitals of dead gods, cheeseburgers from the Tastee Diner in Cambridge that tasted of everything America had ever wished to be, and really frigging great pizza.
I turned to raw food because my face was wrecked and I had failed in all of my dreams and, honestly, I just wanted to be thinner, but also, I have always been convinced that nothing vegan could really ever be as gross as such comestibles as Dinty Moore Beef Stew or a Subway sub with double tuna.
I invited Dave (Vegan Friend) to take me to the raw-food restaurant, because I wanted to impress upon him that my face was wrecked, I had failed in all of my dreams, and he had swallowed the sweetest years of my life. The place was eerily quiet. And the people eating there weren't thin.
Dave ordered the "generous portion of our smoky, winter-spiced nutmeat topped with a sweet cherry glaze and served over fresh spinach." I happily tucked into my sea-vegetable salad and stevia drink, and Dave got this look on his face somewhere between the look he gets when he's had too much coffee liqueur or smashed his hand into the car door and the way he looks at his last traveler's check. He looked like every bone in his face hurt.
"This has to be poop," he whispered. And he left.
Cru is incredible.
I love the ravioli. Even my boyfriend (who said that raw food was pretentious) thoroughly enjoyed his meal.
The coconut ice cream is also fabulous. Stuff yourself silly and still feel well enough to go for a jog afterward.
To quote my friend, "If I were to open a restaurant, it would be this [Cru]."
I came here with 4 other friends (3 of which are typical meat-eaters and 1 of which is going 30 days as a vegetarian), around 9 PM (Cru closes at 10).
The ONE waitress that was serving all 8 tables was extremely friendly, and even as we waited for 20 minutes, she said, "Hey, I'm so sorry! People are just chillin', do you guys want a menu anyways??" and gave us menus to look at while we waited. There were two tables outside, and we just decided, hell, why not just sit outside and eat.... to which the waitress didn't mind at all. She took our orders and everything, but soon we had an empty table inside the restaurant!
Luckily I went with 4 other people, so we could all order something and share.... Two of us ordered the Pad Thai (made with kelp noodles... that's right, I said kelp. The seaweed, kelp.), my friend ordered the Sweet Potato Curry (not raw), my other friend ordered the Pizza and my other friend ordered the Pesto Wrap. We started with the Mezze Platter, and that instantly won all my friends over with the delicious cashew cheese and beet+cranberry combo.
Call us silly but we were so excited when our food came. And holy crap was it delicious. All of it! And let me top it off by saying that the table next to us left a half-empty (or. half-full...) bottle of wine.... to which my friend asked the waitress if we could have -_-..... the waitress called us ghetto but she didn't care at all. AND IT WAS GOOD WINE.
A little about the food: the pizza was amazing--whatever that dough was, I want to eat more of it. And the kelp noodles had such a crunchy, interesting texture. I couldn't really put my finger on what the sauce was made of either... my friend's Pesto Wrap was extremely colorful.... but I'd like to mention that the pizza plate looked like a garden. There might have been more vegetables on that plate than some people have ever eaten in their lives. My friend's curry had RAISINS in it. I don't even like raisins! And the curry was so fragrant you could smell it before you even tasted it (not in the bad way).
We finished the meal off with their popular Chocolate Truffle Cake (made with coconut oil). Did I mention this was RAW too? 2 of my friends don't even like chocolate and they fell in love with this cake. I don't know how they did it but the chocolate melted in your mouth, and it was not overly rich as typical chocolate+truffle combinations go.
Oh, and did I mention the waitress kindly gave us 2 slices of the $8 cake so that the 5 of us could share?
My friends had such a great time at this restaurant, and it wasn't just the fact that it was all very healthy, but it just tasted good. You could taste all of the natural flavors, not overladen with sauces and who-knows-what.
Even if you aren't a vegan, vegetarian, raw foodist, you shouldn't miss this quaint little restaurant in Silver Lake.. because I'm pretty sure the only other kind of raw food you will find at a restaurant everywhere else would be the salad.
