Vintage Veg
‘The Angelica Home Kitchen’ is a Trip Back to a New York City That Is No More
Revisting a 2003 vegan cookbook from the iconic organic, vegan restaurant that once stood in the East Village
Out of all the vegan restaurants in New York City lost to time, I miss Angelica Kitchen most of all. There is a specific kind of mood, a certain tone in the weather, that can stir up a desire in me that could only be sated by a macrobiotic tempeh sushi roll and a slice of carob tart at this once-long-standing East Village spot. It was the first place I went when I became committed to veganism, and it represents a New York that was alive and weird. Angelica Kitchen closed in 2017, after 40 years in business — an icon of a bygone era.
We still have the book, though. The Angelica Home Kitchen: Recipes and Rabble Rousings from an Organic Vegan Restaurant by Leslie McEachern, which came out in 2003, is split into two parts. In Part I, “Building a Foundation,” one is treated to an in-depth look at the restaurant’s history and philosophy, including how to maintain a socially conscious business, support their growers and producers, the healing properties of food, and why they eschew industrial agriculture:
As farmers are replaced by factories and…
