The plant-based banquet at Little Saint, Healdsburg
If you’re like me, you can smell a vegan cupcake a mile away.
I admit, when I catch the scent, it’s a bit frightening.
To be clear, I’m not actually vegan, just allergic to dairy. But I’ve felt deprived of dessert at so many dinners and events throughout the years that now, when I encounter sweets that are safe for me to eat, I ingest an obscene amount. Obscene.
Not sorry.
My dairy-free dessert obsession only became more pronounced during pregnancy, and I’ve been known to joke that my children are 75% vegan cupcake. Except it’s not a joke.
My hunt for dairy-free treats has prompted me to drag my husband to Williamsburg for a Boston cream donut from Dun-Well, to Clinton Hill for a giant slice of Clementine’s red velvet cake, to the Lower East Side for a lemon cupcake from Erin McKenna’s Bakery, and even to the far reaches of DC when we’re in the area, for a cinnamon roll from Sticky Fingers.
Though I was never one for creamy foods before I had dietary restrictions, I am now obsessed with plant-based versions of traditionally dairy-heavy savory dishes too. I probably ate the “Chostess” cupcake from By Chloe (now Beatnic) five-hundred times before they stopped making it (R.I.P.), but I inhaled their Quinoa Taco Salad even more often. Extra cashew crema, please!
That’s all to say that, not surprisingly, when I found myself in California wine country with my two best friends from college this summer, I made a beeline for plant-based culinary haven, Little Saint.
Walking in, I was delighted from the start. The space was airy, the service warm and unpretentious. But let’s be honest: I was there for the grub.
There was a time when vegan food was a hash of seitan and soy, but now it’s so much more about letting fresh ingredients sing, about using nuts to replicate all sorts of textures and tastes, about being its own legit cuisine. And this was an epicenter of that movement. So, to be able to order anything, I mean anything, off the Little Saint menu with abandon — without the whole, sorry-I’m-annoying-but-I-have-a-dairy-allergy-yes-to-all-dairy-no-butter-either conversation — made me want to order everything. My friends basically had to confiscate my wallet like I was a drunk frat boy at a Vegas casino.
What did we eat? What didn’t we eat? We dug raw farm vegetables into tangy Pumpkin Seed Dip with chili oil and Cultured Cashew Spread with tomato conserva, sampled Brine-Pickled Carrots and marinated olives, stuffed ourselves full of Japanese Eggplant with shaved cabbage, crispy rice and xo sauce. We even shared an order of Belgian waffles with the fluffiest whipped cream and sweetest strawberries.
Literally, every single thing was delicious. And, lest you don’t trust my opinion as someone who admittedly doesn’t have actual dairy-based food as a barometer, even my friends (who can eat what they want and aren’t weird) thought every single dish was special. After all, this is wine country! Where the produce is as fresh as the morning sun and everything tastes like a dream!
In an unexpected turn of events, my favorite item of all turned out to be a non-alcoholic drink: The M.E.T. Gala with pistachio, rose, maca, hibiscus, blood orange and sumac salt. It’s so rare to taste something completely different than anything you’ve had before, especially when it’s essentially a mocktail, usually a throwaway offering. But this drink was entirely unusual to taste as well as beautiful to look at — sweet and salty and creamy and refreshing. A new experience! It feels like awhile since food felt that way for me.
So, if you’re willing to go off-the-beaten-path for a plant-based culinary adventure, I say, take the trip to Healdsburg.
Go ahead. I dairy you. (Oh, God. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.)
