Big Matt with cheese
June 2007 | Tastebuds
Euphoria Loves Rawvolution: Peace, Harmony and Raw Food
By Eliza Thomas
Like many living foods endeavors, Euphoria Loves Rawvolution is more than just a restaurant. The corner where it sits — halfway between YogaWorks and Urth Caffé on Santa Monica’s madly charming Main Street — seems to veritably hum with good vibes. (And perhaps that’s no illusion; concerned by health effects of neighborhood power lines, Euphoria wrangled the power company to cut EMF’s on the corner of Strand and Main by half).
Friday night “community dinners” — ten bucks for live music, dinner and dessert — are a hit with regulars and raw-curious alike. And any day of the week, the restaurant and Beauty and Wisdom — the organic bodycare, books and healing center next door — offer a host of events, from film nights to open mics, nutritional counseling to donation-based meditation classes.
Gather round the elixir bar for a noni juice, raw cacao smoothie or custom-made shake, and you’re likely to hear fellow customers debating the latest federal regulations on organic standards, or discussing the merits of liver versus intestinal cleanses. “We want our customers to become superheroes of conscious action,” says Janabai, who co-founded the café with her husband, living foods chef Matt Amsden. “What you eat affects everything else that you do — it affects you on a cellular level, increasing your ability to make more enlightened decisions. Fresh, healthy food is the beginning. You can’t make good decisions with a clouded mind.”
Like many in the raw movement, the Amsdens attack their mission — to educate and empower as many people as possible to live at optimum health — with near-superhuman passion. Their business model reads like a handbook on environmental standards: ultra-low VOC paint, energy-efficient appliances, 100 percent certified organic ingredients sourced almost entirely from local farms, and a near-religious dedication to composting (the restaurant estimates it’s whittled its waste to less than five pounds a week).
But their menu is their most convincing argument. Start the day happy with cold-pressed almond butter and sun-dried strawberry jam on apple bread, or stave off a junk food craving with the hearty (and heart-healthy) Big Matt With Cheese. Order one of the exquisitely executed desserts — and feel good about it. “We’re one of the few restaurants where you can have chocolate for breakfast, and it’s good for you,” laughs Matt.
Surveying the shelves of superfood supplements and gourmet raw staples sourced for their purity, quality and potency, Janabai counts her blessings.
“The mainstream food supply is so homogenized, most people eat very few types of fruits and vegetables,” she says. “Conventionally-grown bananas, apples, orange… we call them the poodles of the fruit world.”
“We are so lucky to live in this time, in this area,” she continues. “At no other time in history have we had access to a variety of food this healthy and delicious.”
Euphoria Loves Rawvolution Café, 2301 Main Street, Santa Monica. 310.392.9501. EuphoriaLovesRawvolution.com. Open 9am to 9:30pm daily.
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