Cakes, cow-free
Café Indigo offers vegan baked goods, wraps and more
By Susan Reilly Ware news@hippopress.com
Vegans rejoice — Concord has a new organic vegan restaurant.
Serving burritos, quesadillas, wraps and chili, plus a whole line of desserts and even a Sunday brunch, Café Indigo is not just for non-meat-eaters. The owners painstakingly adapted old family recipes and then taste-tested all of their dishes on carnivore friends.
“My experience comes from years of cooking for my three girls, and then as they became vegans, slowly adapting all of our recipes so that they could eat everything that is on the table,” Patti Dann said.
Dann calls herself and her husband “accidental” vegans. As their daughters became vegans during their late teenage years — the oldest, Jennifer, dove into an activist lifestyle in Burlington, Vt., where she lived, Meghan is an animal rights activist and involved with PETA and the youngest, Kaitlin, just never liked meat — Dann said that she started making the switch when cooking family meals. Soon she was selling breads to local shops and a wholesale business grew. Earlier this year, they outgrew the kitchen in her home and looked for commercial space. The café was an afterthought, something they did because the space was there. Now it has a life of its own.
Her mother-in-law, who lives in Harrison, Maine, is a great cook and the keeper of the family recipes. She e-mails them to Dann, who spends time making them without meat, dairy and eggs.
“The only thing she insists is that I keep the recipes in the family,” Dann laughs.
And what will you find at Café Indigo? Well, tofu for sure. But here it is served in a barbecue-style wrap ($5.25) or as a fish-type sandwich ($5.25). There is also an egg-less egg salad ($5.25), a hummus wrap ($5.25) and a portabello wrap ($5.25).
AT Café Indigo you can get veggie burgers made from scratch or a spinach-soysage burrito or quesadilla (all $5.25). There is always chili or lentil soup, both served with cornbread ($4.95) and a selection of salads ($5.95-$6.95).
Sweets include a cinnamon roll ($1.50), muffins and cookies ($1.25) and egg-less cakes in lemon poppy, carrot and “death by chocolate” (all $3.50 a slice).
Café Indigo also is serving Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be a salad station and a dessert station and you can choose one item off the menu ($15 per person).
While the restaurant has had a strong start, pulling in a good lunch crowd from local businesses, Dann says the bulk of her business is her wholesale baking, which she also does out of the Hall Street kitchen.
Café Indigo is tucked on the left side of the Hall Street complex. If you have never been there, it can be a bit confusing. When you enter the complex, stay left and drive around toward the back of the building. You will see a whole group of other businesses back there, with Café Indigo in the middle.
Also, feel free to talk to Dann about catering, she is open to anything.
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