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.