A new vegan restaurant is to open on Islington’s Upper Street from Friday December 14.

Islington Gazette: Their second restaurant will serve organic and artisanal fare in much larger premises on Upper Street.Their second restaurant will serve organic and artisanal fare in much larger premises on Upper Street. (Image: Archant)

The Wild Food Café is the second venue of its kind, and it follows on from the successes of its original site in Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, which opened almost seven years ago.

The new restaurant has a focus on “plant-based innovation” as it vows to bring “the heart of the wild” to Upper Street’s dining out scene.

Ahead of the restaurant’s opening, founders Joel and Aiste Gazdar said: “ Our aim is to celebrate nature and the wild in a positive ‘winfinity’ kind of way.

“We have always seen all that we do as serving and benefiting the local and global community and spearheading the plant-based movement, which is so vital for the individual and collective wellbeing.

Islington Gazette: Wild Food Cafe founders Joel and Aiste Gazdar.Wild Food Cafe founders Joel and Aiste Gazdar. (Image: Archant)

“We are hoping to bring this hub to Angel and are very excited to be able to establish a bigger, bolder, innovative restaurant and wellbeing space in north London reaching many more people in Islington, London and beyond.”

The Islington outpost of Wild Food Café is to be four times larger than its sister site in the West End. Unlike the original, this new Angel restaurant will also take bookings.

Selected dishes available will include starters like the pulled jackfruit sandwich bites – with raw walnut and courgette bread, little gem, black garlic cashew cheese and BBQ jackfruit – as well as scallops of king oyster and wabi-sabi kale salads.

For heartier dishes, the Living Laksa offers a vegan twist on the popular Malaysian dish, while Queen of the Forest is a coconut-seared plantain stew with romanesco, black rice, amaranth and other nutritious goodies. Wild Food Café will also offer gluten-free, wood-fired pizzas.

To drink, the restaurant will have medicinally-focused juices, superfood smoothies, natural wines and superfood cocktails as part of its regularly changing ‘liquid nourishment’ menu.

Joel adds: “Islington is a beautiful and lovely area that bridges the gap between west and east. It’s within a reasonable range of our first place, has a lovely vibe and is a nice residential area. Our whole team loved it when we came to look around the site.”

Wild Food Cafe Islington will open at 269-270 Upper Street, N1 2UQ, on Friday December 14. For more information, visit their website.