The Fresh Carrot: Kale, Quinoa and a Cold Pressed Carrot Juice

The press at the front of the room runs loud enough that conversation stops for it, and what comes out is the colour of a traffic light. Ten past eleven on a Tuesday and the counter at 9519 Harding Avenue is three deep. A woman in gym clothes waits on a turmeric shot. Two men order fire wraps and step aside. A cook in fresh gloves builds a poke bowl in the order the menu lists it: brown rice, edamame, arugula, avocado, pickled ginger, crispy onions, sesame seeds over the top. The queue moves. Nobody here is settling in for the evening, and the room has been built on that understanding since Peggy and Abe Sreter opened it in February 2017.

The clearest thing this kitchen does is the fire wrap, and the clearest way to understand the kitchen is to read it. One build, ten proteins. Kale, avocado, quinoa, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts, carrots and cucumber go into every one of them, and what changes is what sits on top. Sesame crusted ahi tuna in soy ginger. Scottish salmon in honey ginger. Mahi mahi in citrus dressing. Falafel. Organic tofu. Grilled chicken breast. It is a system rather than a list, and it is why the queue moves at the pace it does.