Sage Cafe Makes a Meathead Believe

While the defining characteristic of vegan and vegetarian cooking may be a lack—the missing animal protein which forms the base and center of so many culinary traditions—the removal of meat and animal products still leaves a cook, a chef, a dedicated restaurateur and her crew with an awful lot to work with: herbs and spices, chiles and starches, vegetables and beans, strong flavors and powerful ingredients which, handled with care and a little forethought, can all be incredibly satisfying.

What makes the difference is how one approaches those ingredients. I may not have loved everything at Sage, but I was still surprised by how much I truly liked—not as the end product of any -ism, but simply as food. And the reason I did is the same as it would be in any restaurant, regardless of cuisine: cooks approaching their canon looking for possibility and reaching for excellence, which, sadly, many vegan restaurants do not.

Peter Mumford

Mary King with her “Sweet Jamaican” sandwich, which contains absolutely no jerk chicken.

Location Info

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Sage Cafe

324 15th Ave. E.
Seattle, WA 98112

Category: Restaurant > Sandwiches

Region: Capitol Hill

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Sage Cafe 324 15th Ave. E., 325-6429, hillsidequickie.com. 10 a.m.–7 p.m. Mon.–Fri., noon–7 p.m. Sat., noon–4 p.m. Sun.

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And in this way, Sage becomes the answer to my original question to vegetarians about what they might miss by their deliberate turning-away from so much that I consider delicious. Are they missing something? Yes. But so are you if you dismiss out-of-hand the possibilities of vegan cooking. The style at play in Sage's kitchen is the glorification of the available, not a yearning for what's not. And that, in its own way, is something that should never be missed.

jsheehan@seattleweekly.com