Saf

HORRIBLE NEWS. Saf is closing forever on February 9 2014. Get in quick if you want to taste their food!

Food is awesome but a little on the expensive side.
The staff are friendly and if you are vegan/​raw/​whatever they ‘ll know wha you can eat. No worry that you’ll have to explaign for 15 min before you dare to order.
Have however heard that they might change their menu soon but hopefully that will be cool to.

My good friend took my husband and I to Saf while we were visiting London. Saf is above Whole Foods Market, which was very convenient, as we did a little shopping after dinner. We had the ionized water, which came in a pitcher with a cucumber slice in it. I ordered risotto and my husband and friend both ordered a curry dish (it’s been a couple of weeks, so I don’t remember exactly what it was called). I liked my dish, but I think the curry was better. The restaurant is definitely trendy. It was a bit pricey for this Texan, but I think it was well priced for London standards. :) It was nice to eat at a place that was all vegan. The server was very nice and funny. If we lived in London, we would eat there again (and go shopping afterwards). :)

I’ve been to SAF (Simply Authentic Food) four times so I could try every courses on the menu. The restaurant is elegant and minimalist style: chairs, stools and wooden tables. The characteristic of SAF is that everything is cooked at low temperature. The atmosphere is healthy. The service is friendly. SAF is also a bar, there are seats at the counter. The Caviar Blinis is very good, obviously not true caviar, Seitan Kebab was great. And finally a delicious Mousse Trio. These are just some of the choices, you’ll want to taste all of SAF. SAF has become an appointment for me to dinner, whenever I’m in London.

Four-​Course Vegan Meal With Champagne For One (£25) or Two (£49) at Saf Kensington (Up to 56% Off)
Four-​Course Menu:
Groupon Deal:

If you are one of those who have always thought of vegan food as joyless, unsophisticated and frankly a waste of a good knife and fork, then step this way to have all of those preconceptions dissolved in one fell swoop!
Based inside the Barker’s building on High Street Kensignton (a few minutes from the tube station) where Whole Foods is based, this restaurant brings imagination, sophistication and brilliant culinary knowledge to the vegan plate and will have even a hardy meat eater relishing the flavours and devouring the beautifully presented and sublime dishes in a healthy heart beat!
I’m hoping this restaurant spreads and spreads as it’s a wonderful introduction to vegan food if you’ve never had it and it’s ethos and commitment to healthy living makes it a wise choice for any one looking to still enjoy a fabulous night out while wanting to keep themselves in good shape!
Apparently saf means pure in Turkish and I’d say this place is PURE JOY!
Enjoy I did!

Saf is an impeccable, slightly posh experience. It’s part of the food
court at this very large Whole Foods store, so you can either eat «in»
the restaurant (which really means in a slightly segregated space), or
take your meal to one of the communal tables and combine it with food
from other places.
The food felt substantial and very, very neat («Saf» is, after all, a
word that means «clean» in several Asian languages). I didn’t
discover until later that it’s a raw-​food place (nothing cooked above
48 degrees C), which means the technique did not outshine the food.
Of course, you’ll pay generously for all this.
Given the location, it’s naturally easy to combine a meal here with a
shopping run to the Whole Foods.

Ummmmm. NO!
This food is really not good. I’m not sure what the other folks had, but my food was totally bland rabbit food.
I had the Pad Thai which was a complete joke. This is a SALAD. It is NOT Pad Thai. So basically I had a salad that cost 15 pound. Also had the sweet potato dumplings. Blah — no taste.
Service and staff are excellent — very kind and helpful people.
Overpriced flavorless food.
Will not return.

I’m just not as in love with Saf as I feel I should be. Maybe it’s the cost, or the glowing reviews from everyone else not mirroring my experience.
I ordered Saf’s Super Green juice and the Pad Thai everyone seems to rave about.
My «pad thai» was good, but not £14.85 of good. Especially considering it was on a lunch menu. I think I should have opted for the daily special and taken advantage of the multi course special.
As for my juice, well, what was brought to me wasn’t particularly palatable, but I wasn’t ordering the juice expecting an innocent smoothie. But £6.15 for such a small glass was a bit frustrating, I have to admit.
The space is splendid, and I can’t knock it. Tall windows and lots of light, and pleasant servers.
I felt satisfied when I was done with my meal, and did really enjoy the freshness of the dishes.
I would go back, but I would keep my choices to the lower end of the price range or opt for the daily special, and I think I would be more pleased.

The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup… I say a little prayer for the dinner I am going to eat that night. (To reiterate, YES. The moment I wake up, I am excited about my daily food intake. Isn’t that normal?)
Luckily when my dinner is raw/​vegan, there’s not much guilt to repent for, so my prayer is short and sweet: Please let my food be delicious and satisfying.
At Saf, my prayers are continually answered; while you’d usually assume that delicious and satisfying are antonyms to vegan and raw, Saf will prove you wrong.
I do spend more time at their Shoreditch outpost, but come to find out, S-​Ken can represent with the best of ‘em, with some stunning floor to ceiling windows, ingredients sourced no further than downstairs (if they’re not made in house) and exceptionally friendly service.
And those cocktails? Heavenly.

When I first sampled Saf in Shoreditch I was delighted by their libations so when we found ourselves in striking distance of their west London location I suggested we grab a cocktail.
The thyme time was ridiculously excellent; a cross between a bloody mary and a super fresh gazpacho. Which, for a tomato lover like me, was pretty much heaven in a cocktail glass.
In sum, Saf’s a superb stop after a shopping session on Kensington High Street.

I’ve been a newly recruited healthy eater. August will be a year that I’ve been trying to be concious about the food I put into my body. No preservatives, organic, and vegan when possible. I can say I’ve never felt better. Truly I think the vegan/​healthy diet has gotten a bad wrap.
My poor boyfriend’s eyes glaze over every time the words «organic» «gluten free» and «vegan» come out of my mouth, and rightly so as he is still on the path of being enlightened. He’ll jump on the bandwagon soon enough, you’ll see.
My friend was in town from L.A. and is a proper vegan so I jumped at the chance to take her to Saf as I’d read up on it previously. I will admit I have never had a «raw» meal before but I will try anything twice. Twice because I think the palate is less shocked and more aware of whether what you’re putting in your mouth is good or not.
The restaurant is in an open air first floor (second floor for you yanks) eatery next to a dim sum and sushi place. Its not a romantic spot by any means but has a lot of natural light. The staff were more than helpful and friendly which wins a lot of points in my book.
For a starter we ordered a «cannoli» which was raw, made of cashew cheese wrapped in zucchini with a lovely tomato topping. I was pleasantly surprised with how much flavor was packed in!
I had the raw pad thai for my main. It was horribly overpriced at 15 pounds (thus 4 stars), but it was absolutely delicious. The noodles were carrots and zucchini (sorry courgette?) in a wonderful peanut sauce with tons of other vegetables. Even if you aren’t vegan I’m pretty sure you’d enjoy the dish.
We shared the AMAZING ganache torte for desert. From what I can remember its vegan, raw, sugar free and gluten free. HEAVEN!!!
Overall, I think this place is a welcome treat for vegans, and a great way to induct the non-​vegan folk into good food without meat products.
If nothing else, go for the torte!

So I popped down to Saf, to catch up with some friends from a Juice Detox Retreat (hence the choice of an exceptionally healthy eaterie), and being based in the Wholefoods, on High Street Kensington, it was only a 5 minute walk from the station.
Upstairs, on the left hand side of Wholefoods, you can find Saf. It’s not particularly loud, or distinct, from the other eateries, but there is a nice large bit of signage, from the entrance, to the area that houses Saf to make it easy enough to find.
The design of the area that is Saf, has a very upmarket feel to it, with bar type stools surrounding a large table in the middle, big enough for groups of 10 – 15 easily, whilst the lower seating, around the edges is your typical padded ²⁄₄ seater cubicles, ideal for smaller groups.
We were on the centre table, but there were only about 7 of us, as the other ⁴⁄₅ folks in our group hadn’t made it. (Later we discovered they had thought we were meeting somewhere else, and so ended up having a small group dinner of their own).
When I arrived, everyone had already ordered, and folks were already sipping on their healthy drinks (juices that were freshly extracted. they all sounded yummy, I just can’t remember what they were, they were just very green, and tasted delish!).
As I went through the menu, they had the set menu, as well as a ‘specials’ menu. My friend ran me through the menu items that weren’t available (about 4 dishes out of maybe 16 or 20 dishes in total?), then the waitress came and took my order as soon as I was ready to order.
It took a while for me to get my drink (though with it being freshly extracted, I’m guessing that’s possibly a good thing?), and whilst I watched everyone dig into their mains, mine came a short while after everyone else’s, so I must say their service felt very prompt, and fast. It looks like they made a special effort to make sure I didn’t end up waiting too long for my main, after they’d served everyone else, so I appreciate that apparent thoughtfullness on their part.
I had a mushroom tortilla pancake style dish (made of corn, and gluten free), which was really nice, and yummy. It seems, that half of us had chosen the mushroom corn tortilla style dish, and the other half of our group had all opted for a thai curry with rice dish.
I tasted a little bit of the thai curry, and it tasted quite nice. When everyone had finished, one of my friends had quite a bit of rice and curry left over, so I ended up trying it out, and it was actually really nice too.
You could tell that it was all made with nice fresh ingredients, and whilst there were some good flavours, it was nicely balanced, so you got to taste a bit of everything. Also, I believe they don’t ‘overcook’ the food, so you get all the nutritional benefits of the food, that are often lost, when foods are overcooked.
The Thai Curry was a little spicy, but not so spicy that it would be painful, and equally not so mild, as to be disappointing.
All in all, the quality of service, speed of attention, nice setting, and quality food made it a good experience. I think between 7 of us, we all paid about £16 each, including service, which was already added, which I think was about right, for what we had.
I’d definitely eat here again, and would love to try some of the other menu items. But given that it’s not the kind of place where the portions are overly generous I wouldn’t come here starving, but more just for a light meal with a friend, or a more conversational dinner with a healthy conscious crowd, as if you’re not that interested in the healthier aspects of Saf, and the way they prepare their food, you might consider it a little overpriced for the amount of food you get. (Or maybe that’s just me? :)
When it came time to pay, I think they would have given us individual bills, but given we were in a rush, we decided to all pay together, even though half our group paid by card. I settled my balance in cash, and had enough time to nip downstairs, and grab a book I wanted — ‘The China Study’, and I was paid up, and waiting in the lobby, before everyone else managed to make it down!
Also, we didn’t have time to try the desserts, even though they looked yummy! Next time ;)

I wasn’t looking forward to my recent trip to London. It’s a city I’ve visited many times and tend to find overpriced and overhyped. But I was *delighted* during my trip in June/​July 2010 to stumble across ‘saf.’ It truly made my visit to the city enjoyable.
I ate at ‘saf’ four nights in a row for dinner. Each time I tried something different from the menu, and each time I was overjoyed with the outcome. The food – all of it vegan/​vegetarian – was tasty, healthy, fresh, and best of all *artfully* presented. Besides, the service was excellent, and the prices, I thought, were reasonable.
The atmosphere is trendy (but comfortable), despite being located in a somewhat exposed open space on the top floor of WholeFoods. I really hope ‘saf’ catches on.

No longer just a Shoreditch hipster hang out with a fine dining venue on Curtain Road, Saf’s second London location seats 83 and is to offer private catering, a signature Saf-​To-​Go take away range and is to host on-​going cookery, wine and cocktail making demonstrations and classes.
I’m a big fan of Saf’s cuisine and reckon this new West London is a good thing. So Ken isn’t the most accessible part of town for me — and I’m really not one to hang out at the Whole Foods Market. But, Saf’s build-​in is attractive and I wouldn’t be against stopping by again. If I lived around there, I’d be chuffed indeed to have it nearby.