M Cafe De Chaya

• Cuisine(s): American, California, Health, Vegan, Vegetarian
  Hours: Sun 9am-9pm, Mon-Sat 9am-10pm
  Price: $$ $$
• Payment Types: MasterCard, Visa, American Express
  Features: Catering, Delivery, Patio/Sidewalk Dining, Takeout
  Serving: Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch
• Alcohol: None
  Reservations: Accepted, Not Necessary
  Parking: Lot Available

Description

If you've ever wondered if people actually wear the $400 jeans you see advertised in Vogue, an hour at M Café can be instructive, a merry parade of the snuggest styles and the most avant-garde finishes, worn by some of the most beautiful people on Earth. This is the place that made macrobiotic cuisine fashionable, partly because almost anything tastes great when it is made with vegetables bought at a decent growers market, but also because the kitchen lets kale taste like kale but has the sense to let tempeh-based club sandwiches taste like something you'd pick up at the Daily Grill. Owned by the people who run Chaya Venice and Chaya Brasserie, M Café food may be based on strict macrobiotic principles - the vegetable sushi here is made not just with brown rice, but with organic, artisanally produced heirloom brown rice - but when the tomatoes are ripe, the pesto is pungent and the house-baked bread is crisp, even a sybarite can overlook the fact that the “mozzarella” started its life as a plant.