True Bistro: An Upscale Vegan Dining Experience

Last night Katie and I headed to True Bistro in Somerville for a birthday dinner.  I had very high hopes for this restaurant as there has been NO vegan fine dining in Boston since Grezzo closed last spring.  Let me just say that this place not only met, but surpassed my expectations.  From the clean and inviting ambiance to the decadent food- finally Boston vegans have somewhere to go for a nice meal.

From the outside, True Bistro looks really cute and almost hidden.  When you get inside it is light and clean and very inviting.  We sat down and were greeted with three menus: wine, cocktail and dinner.  Um, yes please.  I started out with a glass of Savignon Blanc and Katie had El Diablo. 

Everything on menu looked amazing and we had a really hard time deciding what to get.  I mean we really struggled which means another trip will need to happen really soon.  We started with the cornmeal-crusted oyster mushrooms and the house made french fries which are tossed with porincini infused oil and fluer du sel.  The mushrooms were out of this world and served with a wasabi-like dipping sauce.  The french fries were equally scrumptious.

On to the main course, I finally settled on phyllo purse which was stuffed with seitan, roasted zucchini, red mole, fire roasted peppers, arugula and pepitos.  This was seriously one of my top 3 vegan dishes ever.  It was epic and beautiful and tasted even better than it looked.  Seriously amazing.

Katie had the stuffed eggplant with coconut, jasmine rice and steamed red cabbage.  I tried this too and damn, that stuffing was hella good!  Also, the cabbage was cooked to perfection and had just enough crunch.  I would totally get this dish next time if there wasn't like 10 other things I wanted to try!

We then moved on to dessert. Yes, you heard me right, dessert.  There are so few vegan places that do dessert right, but True Bistro nailed it.  Katie had the brownie a la mode with vanilla coconut ice cream.  This was good, but mine was like a little slice of heaven.

I had the mango and macadamia nut crumble with vanilla ice cream.  This was off the hook.  It combined two of my favorite things; mangos and macadamia nuts.  If anything was going to seal the deal on my love of this place, it was THIS dish.

While we were waiting for dessert, I got to talking with one of True Bistro's owners, Linda.  We talked about what inspired her to open True Bistro and her answer rang so true with me- because there were no vegan fine dinning choices in Boston.  Linda told me how she has been a vegan for 6 years and that the local vegan food scene had left something to be desired.  That inspired her and her husband (who is mostly vegan) to open True Bistro. 

Linda, thank you for that!  Your restaurant rocks and I can't wait to come back and try everything else on the menu.  True Bistro has been open for 9 months.  Check them out on yelp or visit them for yourself at 1153 Broadway in Somerville.  Trust me, you won't be sorry!