Food Drink

ITAL Arrives Bringing Vegan Eats To Adelaide’s West End

By Gavin de Almeida

Posted on April 6, 2017

Format plays hosts to a new cafe, ITAL, a Rastafarian inspired vegan eatery with delicious, healthy fare.

If you’re looking for a healthy vegan lunch option on the west side of town, ITAL could be the fix you’re looking for.

Jules, a committed vegan for seventeen years, and wife Erin, soaked in a wealth of influences in popular bohemian Berlin for a couple of years and have arrived full of inspiration to create their Rastafarian influenced vegan cafe. The venture, is a three month pop up project (for now) and is the new resident cafe within the airey, multifunctional, (but always chic) Format art space, taking over from Augnablik and Parsec before that.

Jules tells us that Rastafarian food is the result of the confluence of Hindu and African influences in Jamaica. The spicy vegan cuisine has grown in popularity in different parts of the west where a clean living, ethical mentality has coincided with the earthy “hipster” sensibilities of a variety of intersecting subcultures.

Ital means “from the earth” and as Jules explains, the ethos of the cafe is “nourishing food from the Earth” and frankly, that pretty much explains the sensation of dining at Ital. The dishes are vegan and have a hearty but healthy plateful which have the added bonus of tasting great.

We tried the jah shaka which is comprised of sweetly marinated mock chicken, brown rice, spiced pumpkin, corn, baby spinach and onion jam. The dish packed a lot of punch and was so filling, we struggled to finish it. The addictive soy-based mock chicken has fantastic umami with a texture somewhere between chicken and bocconcini and the sweet seasoning and onion jam infuse throughout the dish bringing the different elements together.

With the healthy fare bound to appeal to a range of health conscious foodies we highly recommend lunching here to get your tasty Rastafarian fix, while it lasts!

ITAL is located on 80 Hindley Street, City and open Tuesday 8am-3pm and Friday 5pm till late.