Raw food sparks interest in North End

By Ben Austin







NORTH END -- Anita Grille finished searching the menu at Grezzo and glanced around for the waitress, anxiously hoping to order her third meal of the week from the raw restaurant on Prince Street.


"It's unique to the area for sure," said Grille, 49, of East Hampton, N.Y. "I think it's a nice change, a nice option for people to have."


In a neighborhood with more than 100 restaurants, nearly all of which are Italian, Grezzo stands out like sushi in a pastry shop.


"It's good. It's a different thing in the North End, showing people how to eat healthy," said Roseanne, a waitress at Pushcart Pizza just down the street from Grezzo. "I think the new generation will accept it."


The term "raw and living food" refers to food cooked below 112 degrees. As a vegan restaurant, Grezzo avoids the use of all animal and processed products, including honey, canned food and maple syrup. Most of the meals are based on seasonal fruits, vegitables, nuts and seeds.


Grezzo, which means raw in Italian, is a small candle-lit raw and living vegan restaurant in the middle of the North End. While it does stand out to those who know what it is, it can appear to be just another Italian restaurant to others.


"I think that a lot of people don't know we're a raw vegan restaurant. They just assume we're Italian," said Lucy Churchill, 21, a waitress at Grezzo who previously lived in a vegan colony. "I don't think there is any animosity with other North Enders but I think we're just sort of hidden."


For some, a vegan restaurant in the North End still seems a bit out of place.


"I haven't actually been there yet; it's pretty bizarre," said Mickey Hanson, 22, who says she tried a raw diet for a month while living in Seattle two years ago. "The North End is a place where people go because they want to eat really good food. So in that regard, it does fit in, because it's a very specialty restaurant."


Cooks at the restaurant make vegan ingredients to substitute for animal products, such as using nuts to make cheese and processed vegetables to make bread.


"There's kind of an endless amount of things you can do with vegetables," Churchill said. "With the current food system a lot of food has, kind of, poison in it. The more organic you're eating the cleaner your body is."


Alissa Cohen, an internationally known author and raw food chef and consultant, opened Grezzo in the North End in January of 2008. Cohen's knowledge of raw and living food often makes it's way into the dinner conversations at her restaurant.


"What I am really impressed about it that they really take time to explain the food and educate you, as well as just providing the entrees," Grille said.


During a time when most restaurants are downsizing due to the poor economy, Grezzo has opened a new branch in Newburyport. Cohen was unavailable for comment at press time.