Friday, February 08, 2013

Spoon's Vegetarian Butcher

23/05/2013: News on Spoon's facebook page suggests that they're no longer operating at this location. There'll soon be another vegan cafe in the shopfront! Thanks to @cookiedaux & @Zuckerbaby for the update.

February 1, 2013


I had a good work excuse to be in Sydney for a week at the start of February and I managed to talk Cindy into coming up early with me and spending a long-weekend eating our way through the inner-west. We got in about lunch time, dumped our bags and headed straight down to Spoon's Vegetarian Butcher on Enmore Road.


Spoon's is a mock-meat place selling their own range of products (sausages, schnitzels, pies, burgers and seitan bits), alongside a handful of other mock-meat goodies, loads of sauces and a few other bits and pieces. The best part? They've fitted it all out like an old school butcher - right down to the cow head on the wall and the fake grass in the cabinet. It's pretty special.


They also have a fish and chip style front section, with a grill and a small menu of made to order goodies. There are a couple of burgers, a BLT, two variations on sausages in bread and a handful of sides. As soon as I saw them, I knew Cindy was going to order the Kentucky-style tofu nuggets ($4.50).


We couldn't help comparing them to Cindy's invented KFC tofu, and these probably didn't quite measure up. They were still pretty great though, crispy and coated in Spoon's own secret herbs and spices, served with a sweet mayo-type dipping sauce.

For mains, Cindy ordered the BLT (smokey rasher, tomato, lettuce and mayo, $10).


I'm not sure if the bacon is made in house - it certainly wasn't the usual Sanitarium-style rasher. Cindy commented that it was very much at the charred, crispy end of bacon imitation, quite different to the usual fakers.

I went for the schnitzel burger, which comes with the old-school accompaniments of tomato, beetroot, onion and mayo. I added a slice of vegan cheese for an extra buck.


This was exceptional - the schnitzel had the perfect texture, with a crumby exterior and a chewy patty. The flavours are good too - meaty, oniony and hearty. 

After watching a customer buy a brownie and then return in 5 minutes to buy another, Cindy grabbed one on the way out. It turned out to be banana flavoured, so I didn't give it a try - it was pretty popular with Cindy though.



I really enjoyed our visit to Spoon's - the faithful recreation of a suburban butcher takes a nice little vego place and kicks it up to something really fun. Spoon's seems to be doing pretty well too - they had a steady stream of customers while we were in and they're even getting positive reviews in the tabloid press. We've taken some schnitzels and sausages home to try out for ourselves - keep an eye on twitter for updates! A happy note for all of our Melbourne readers - Radical Grocery have started shipping some of Spoon's mock-meats down to Melbourne, so you can soon pick them up locally.


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miscdebris, Mama Shaz and Baby Pickle, Veggies & Me, Meet the Wikos, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry, easy as (vegan) pie and Like a Vegan all have nice things to say about Spoon's (both the hot food and the take home goodies).
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Spoon's Vegetarian Butcher
175 Enmore Road, Enmore
(02) 9029 8990
hot dishes $8-$10.50
facebook page and website for ordering

Accessibility: There's a small step up on entry. Ordering takes place at the butcher's counter, and you grab your food from a high counter near the fryer. The seating (some of which is at street level out the front) is pretty limited and mostly low stools.

20 comments:

  1. I walked past Spoon's the other night actually, and did a bit of a double take because I wasn't sure I read the sign correctly!

    Good to know that it's worth a visit!

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    1. Hi Amanda! Yep, it's all that it says it is on the sign. :-)

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  2. oh niceee! I am not a vego, but I love the concept!

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    1. Anh - yes, they've followed through with the idea very nicely. :-)

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  3. I've been thinking about if there is any reason for me to go to sydney just so that I can go to spoons - sounds like a fascinating place - imagine a world where all butchers were vegetarian :-)

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    1. Johanna - it's worth the visit if you can find the excuse to travel, but we can look forward to seeing their products closer to home, at Radical Grocery!

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  4. Love Spoons! Living just around the corner from it is such a continuing temptation! :D Just a suggestion re: cooking the sausages - the skins are really tender, I found spraying them with oil and baking rather than frying worked best. When I fried them the skins broke. Tasty-good otherwise.

    Oh and the bacon is seitan based and made in house. :)

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    1. Thanks for the tip, Zuckerbaby! It was just too hot to turn on the oven (though apparently not too hot for sausages and gravy ;-) ) but I kept your advice in mind and treated them veeeeeery gently. Turned out OK in a non-stick pan.

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  5. We need one in Melbourne!! I'll take two banana brownies any day :)

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    1. Hi Lisa! With the ingredients visible in that photo, I wonder if we can reverse engineer those brownies for ourselves... ;-)

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  6. Oh! And the brownies are by The Vegan Teahouse :) http://theveganteahouse.com/ They also do an amazing vegan nutella-style spread!

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    1. Zuckerbaby, that spread must be amazing. And is probably best kept out of my reach. ;-)

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  7. Hey thanks for linking to my blog! Funny, I've been scouring your blog for the past week as I'm heading to Melbourne this weekend. Can't wait to eat all the foods!

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    1. You're welcome, Mama Shaz! I'm glad we can repay the favour - I hope you have a fab time down south. :-)

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  8. Wow, this looks awesome! So true, we NEED a vegetarian butcher in Melbourne. As of yesterday :)

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    1. Hi thesimpleeater! I'm a little jealous of Sydney too. :-)

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  9. Always walk past this place, but I've never been! Thanks for the review- will be checking this out :)

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    1. You're welcome, Hannah. I'll be interested to see what you think of it.

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  10. I've yet to make it to Spoon's but definitely need to pop my head in next time I'm in Enmore!

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    1. Hi JJ - if you've an interest in faux meats it's worth a try. :-)

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