Curious Café Kelowna – A Vegan-Friendly Restaurant Review

🌱 Restaurant Name:  The Curious Café

📍 Address:  1423 Ellis Street, Kelowna, BC  Canada

📞 Phone:  778-484-0490

🌐 Website:  www.thecurious.ca

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🥗 Vegan Status: Vegan Options Available

⭐ Overall Rating: 

🍽️ About the Restaurant: Woodfired food and casual eats

🌱 Vegan-Friendliness

Vegan items clearly marked on menu? Yes

Staff knowledge of vegan options? Yes

🪑 Ambiance:  Open, dim and a big dark but not in a bad way. They do have overhead lights above each table and bar area. The restaurant itself can be quite loud as it is very open but not loud enough that you could hear other people’s conversations. The restaurant is larger than it looks. It has three sections including a back area that can be booked for a private function and seats 30. It was a quiet and cozy area. They do have some family style seating areas so you may be sitting at the same table as others that you don’t know. There is a large mural and lots of pictures filling the walls. There are also TV’s on the walls. We ate during the Christmas season so multi-coloured lights scalloped the ceiling and made a nice ambiance.

🤝 Service:  Friendliness, speed, willingness to accommodate vegans, etc.

 🍴 Menu Items Tried

🥗 Dish Name:  Roasted Garlic Hummus

📖 Menu Description: Sun-dried tomato pistou, herb oil & cashew parmesan with grilled homemade sourdough.

📝Review:  Both my partner and I thought it was decent. I picked up on a bit of a curry flavour – which I am not really a fan of but it was still good. We did have to ask for more sourdough bread though as we didn’t find we were given enough to begin with. We had finished the bread and we still had quite a lot of hummus left. The sourdough pieced were sliced into rounds and baked with an oil in them. We were charged an extra $3 for the extra bread, which were were fine with. We were not told of the extra charge though when we asked for it – we just noticed it on our bill.

💲 Price Rating:  $$ - ($11 - $20)

⭐Rating:

 

🥗 Dish Name:  Vegan Caesar Salad

📖 Menu Description: Grilled romaine hearts with our classic house dressing, shaved parmesan curious bacon, crispy fried capers, and garlic pongrattato charred lemon.

📝Review:  The salad was quite tasty. It had a very nice flavour with the grilling aspect and was nice that it came with extra things like the crispy fried capers. I did find that it was a bit heavier on the dressing than I typically like but my partner thought it was just enough.

💲 Price Rating:  $$ - ($11 - $20)

⭐Rating:

 

🥗 Dish Name:  Animal Lovers Pizza

📖 Menu Description: Marinara, daiya vegan cheese, black olives, marinated artichokes, roasted red peppers, red onions, arugula, tahini dressing, rice paper bacon

📝Review:  It had a very strong olive taste and both my partner and I were convinced they were regular kalamata olives, and not actually black olives like the menu stated (see below picture - what is your opinion?). Had we known, we might have asked for the pizza not to come with the olives. It was tasty though and it was done in the wood fire pizza oven, which is always a nice touch. The top of the pizza was covered in arugula.

💲 Price Rating:  $$$ - ($21 - $30)

⭐Rating:

 

📖 Vegan Menu Items Available:

·        Warm Olives
·        Roasted Garlic Hummus
·        Rustic Bruschetta
·        Arancini
·        Vegan Caesar Salad
·        Falafel Bowl
·        Garbanzo Gladiator
·        Animal Lovers Pizza – however they can use vegan cheese on all veggie pizza

 

📝 Final Thoughts, Highlights or things to know before visiting:

Open, dim and a big dark but not in a bad way. They do have   overhead lights about each table and bar area. The restaurant itself can be quite loud as it is very open but not loud enough that you could hear other people’s conversations. The restaurant is larger than it looks. It has three sections including a back area that can be booked for a private function and seats 30. It was a quiet and cozy area. They do have some family style seating areas so you may be sitting at the same table as others that you don’t know. There is a large mural and lots of pictures filling the walls. There are also TV’s on the walls. 

                       

✅ Suitable for:

☒ Date Night

☒ Family-Friendly

☒ Casual Dining

☒ Takeout

 

❓Would I return again? Yes, absolutely.