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Editorial Review
Deep in the equatorial forests of central Africa, where many believe the first humans were born, live the Bonobos, a peaceful member of the great ape family. Bonobos are the closest animal to humans, sharing 98.4% of our genetic code. While our close relationship to Bonobos inspires intense curiosity in the scientific community for many reasons, they are best known for their energetic sexual behavior and matriarchal, egalitarian society.
To this fascination, add their largely vegetarian raw-food diet of fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts, leaves, roots, flowers and the occasional caterpillar larvae or other small animal. If our closest relatives can live largely disease-free on such a diet, maybe we should be doing the same.
Bonobo’s Vegetarian Restaurant, overlooking Madison Square Park, is bringing the jungle to Manhattan with a colorful spread of organic raw and live foods. The centerpiece of Bonobo’s dining experience is the salad bar. While there are an endless number of salad bars in Manhattan, few offer fennel or celeriac, a root that is related to and tastes like celery but is thought to have anti-inflammatory properties.
Try adding a raw flax oil dressing and a scoop of mixed nut pate for your daily dose of essential fatty acids and cholesterol free protein. Bonobo’s dressings are inventive and healthy. Try the spicy diablo for an extra kick or the lemon garlic tahini for a flavorful creaminess.
Beyond the salad bar, the raw red pepper and coconut soup was one of the better soups that I have ever had. So often, the beautiful sweetness of red bell peppers is destroyed by sautéing or roasting. Tasting its freshness in this soup reminds one that fruits and vegetables deserve to be eaten raw, at least some of the time. Pieces of fresh coconut were a pleasant surprise
Blending in an Asian sensibility, try the Nori wrap ($6.95), stuffed with one of the nut pates and your choice of five toppings from the salad bar served with dressing over greens. Or if you want, substitute the Nori wrap for a Nappa cabbage sandwich. Nappa cabbage, originally grown in China and Japan, but now cultivated in the U.S., provides a low-calorie, yet sweet alternative to the traditional sandwich bread. If you insist on something like bread (nothing is heated over 116 degrees Fahrenheit in raw food cooking, so no baking!) try the nut pate on Bonobo’s ground flax seed cracker.
Opened in 2004 by real estate developer David Norman following his own raw food conversion and health transformation, Bonobo’s joins a growing number of raw food restaurants in the City, notably Quintessence, Caravan of Dreams, and the recently opened Pure Food and Wine. We expect the number of restaurants serving or devoted entirely to raw foods to grow rapidly in the next few years.
While raw food and live food diets have been followed by a small group of believers for many years, the diet has been seen by many in the mainstream nutritional community as a fringe fascination that may pose health risks. By relating the diet to that of our closest animal brothers, Bonobo’s grounds the raw food diet in a broader concern for ecology and natural living that can be understood by a much wider audience.
Commenting on the sexual behavior of the Bonobos, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative quipped, “Bonobos seem to ascribe to the 1960’s hippie credo, ‘make love, not war.’” If you cannot understand the fascination with nut pates and sprouted seeds, you may consider looking more closely at the love lives of our hairy friends. Maybe if the whole city went raw, we could ditch all of the bars, bad pick-up lines and screened calls and just be cool, man.
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Restaurant Information
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Organic
Raw Food
Vegan
Vegetarian
Vegetarian Friendly
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Global Fusion
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$$$ ($21 -$29)
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Member Reviews -- Sorted by
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Showing: 1 of 1 | | User Rating: Highly Recommended | Great Food, Little Pricey Posted by milo9797 on 2/4/05 | Definitely more than a salad bar, raw soup, especially signature coconut red pepper soup is of high quality, but seems like a lot of the stuff (ok maybe not the nut pate) could be made at home for a lot less. Worlds apart from the McDonald's next door, but almost prefer spending a bit more to go to a sit-down raw food place to get the presentation and preparation that the style is famous for.
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Bonobo's
Map-it
