Sanctuary Bistro

Brunch is fantastic — the gluten free waffles are crispy and spongy and just perfect. I like the pancakes too, the egg chillaquilles, super. Kombucha on tap? Oh joy. Beautiful interior with a lot of plant life. It’s a beautiful way to while away a Saturday morning.
Dinner and lunch… eh, not as great. It does skew towards the bland.
Service is hippy dippy as you might expect, so don’t come if you’re in a rush to get the check.

Service here is great but the food is bland and boring. I would not recommend this place to anyone.
The staff was great though and attentive.
What I ordered: biscuits and gravy — biscuits were dry hockey pucks with gravy that even the most jaded middle school lunch lady wouldn’t even serve. Crispy tofu & waffles — the tofu was the only item spiced and it actually smelled really bad when it arrived to the table. The waffle was hard as a rock. I put some butter and syrup on it to try to soften it up and then when I took a bite out of it, it tasted like very stinky cheese and still hard it was completely inedible. The server came over and offered me something different to replace it and she told me that no one has ever complained about the waffle and that they don’t use any cheese in that dish. She was very professional and courteous. So I tried this wrap called the blattdilla. Basically mushrooms avocado tempeh and a few other things on a tortilla. The ingredients tasted very fresh but it was again so bland. Boring cubed potatoes served with it. The kale was cooked well, but tastesless.
My family owned restaurants and when I see restaurants like this it hurts my soul. They have a good staff and we need more vegan gluten free places, but not at the expense of tasty food.

A tad pricey but wonderful to experience. Extremely tasty and adventurous eats. Great customer service. Very tiny but you can call ask for suggestions of good drop by times.

Love the ambiance, love the people but most importantly… love the food! So creative, tasty and beautifully presented.
It is a real treat to sit there and know that I can eat anything I want without paying attention to the ingredients.
Thank you for making vegan food a pleasure for all senses!
Being European myself, I truly appreciate the «bistro» feeling of the place. Subtle décor and cool music. A must!

My boyfriend and I stopped by here and we loved it. First of all, the service is awesome. The people who work here are attentive and kind.
The food though was the winner. We can tell because we still talk about how delicious the potato-​mushroom soup was — creamy, with an incredible array of mushrooms. And the house made noodles were like nothing I’ve had before — gooey yet firm, full of flavor, all while melting in your mouth. And how cool is it that they are gluten free? They don’t taste like it at all.
We’re sure to be back.
Our favorites with the best on top:
Hand stacked lasagna
Potato-​mushroom soup
Buckwheat crêpe
Yuba Mancotti

I’ve now visited Sanctuary a few more times — including a cooking class with a group of my close friends. I’m very pleased with the attentive customer service, delicious food and excellent beverage selections.
My recent lunch was a first — and I was surprised by the tempeh reuben at first — I expected bread but had a gluten free tortilla-​thing. It was amazingly good! The sandwich was satisfying and delicious without leaving me feeling overstuffed (I end up leaving up to ¼ of my bread on the plate when I eat sandwiches in restaurants).
The cooking class was super fun. We all sat at the bar facing the kitchen with our knives and cutting boards to help with prep. We got to make/​try these fantastic yuba manicotti, oyster mushroom chowder and chocolate ganache. Chef Barry is friendly, informative and has a great positive attitude. Super nice guy and a great experience for all of us!

Top notch vegan brunch. It’s fresh, clean and the place is designed gorgeously! The hard woods, fresh greenery and market string lights make for an elegant dining experience. The vegan chicken and waffles were BOMB and my mushroom omelette was delightful!

Excellent food excellent service excellent,
Innovative vegan food, good vibe all the way around

This was the best breakfast I’ve ever had? No wait, amazing coffee, how do they make vegan food taste so good? Witchcraft? Magic? Everything is organic and they have a great mission statement but I’m gonna be real, as long as it tastes good, I’m in. Def 5 stars.

I’ve found myself raving about this restaurant even a week after having dinner there so I feel it deserves a review. I found this little place on Unilocal while searching for vegan dinner places and wow did it exceed expectations.
Due to some awful Bay Bridge and Berkeley traffic, we were late to our reservation. They were incredibly kind and still managed to get us in for dinner despite having a special event that night. (Please don’t be late to your reservation though!) Jennifer was wonderful and took great care of us throughout our meal checking in and making sure everything was tasting good. Everyone was friendly and truly made our night feel special.
The menu was the most difficult part. Everything sounded so good it was difficult to make a decision. After long deliberation we decided to start with the cheese plate that came with three cheeses, crostini and pears. It was delicious and the contrast of the cheese from creamy, tart and savory was superb. For dinner we did two small dishes, soufflé and mediterranean tartine, and the entrée special, shepherd’s pie. Everything was delicious but we both enjoyed the soufflé the most. Light, creamy, and the cauliflower inside was cooked perfect. I could probably eat two myself. We passed on dessert because we were stuffed but on our next visit we will probably save room. Beer and wine selection was great. Lots of local craft brews as well as several from Portland. There are many gluten free options on this menu, in terms of both food and beer.
If you’ve gotten to the end of this review and still don’t understand why Sanctuary Bistro deserves 5 stars, contact me personally.

Vegan, gluten free and just spectacular! We started with the Chambucha which is champagne with a float of kombucha. It had a slight tang and was delicious.
We did bring a bottle of wine and were advised that they don’t do corkage fees and accept wines from the outside. We were slightly disappointed since we brought a bottle that we felt would pair well with our meal but we did understand their philosophy. Unfortunately their wine selection was lacking.
On to the food! The house made artisan cheese plate had was garlic, Meyer lemon, and a walnut cheese were all so good that it made you realize that sometimes you don’t need «real» cheese.
We also had the king oyster scallops that were floating in a white wine broth. At first bite, you would think you bit into an actual scallop. The tenderness of the mushroom stem had the same texture, it was amazing. Next was the beet tartare was blended well with the cashew cheese.
For my main meal, I had the yuba manicotti which was yuba wrapped tofu ricotta served with butternut squash, potato, kale, and red onion ratatouille. The flavors were just so good!
For dessert, we had the chocolate parfait. Rich with layers of coconut whipped cream and delicious.
This is a must go!

Had a date night here last week, and it was absolutely delicious!
I have just chosen to become animal product & byproduct free. Vegan lifestyle I’m here and excited. I’ve been cooking myself vegan meals, but I was determined to try a vegan restaurant. Unilocal led me here and I couldn’t be happier!
I got the Tofu Scallopini:
The mushroom sauce was absolutely delicious– not watery and not to thick. Very flavorful dish. I absolutely love mushrooms and was very happy. The tofu was cooked perfectly.
My SO (Omnivore) got the Hand Stacked Lasagna:
He loved his dish and his only problem was he wanted more. The noodle was delicious and not too chewy, like most gluten free noodles.
We ordered the cashew cheesecake. Boy! was that a good move. We absolutely loved it. My SO couldn’t get enough! He even said he would choose their cashew cheesecake over regular cheesecake.
We will be back very soon!

Food was delicious, well-​presented and service excellent.
I recommend all the dishes I had:
Ginger kombucha — tasty!
Miso salad — good variety of flavors. Ample/​moderate portion, less than a full meal for me.
Almond pancakes — very rich. I split a portion, and one was enough!
Only cons of the experience: a bit loud and fairly slow to serve the meal. Definitely going back, it’s a good value and very healthy!

Great! Fun place! Food is refreshing and not heavy!
Love the place!
The menu is over the top break away from what you would expect to see in a vegetarian restaurant.
This is a don’t miss place!
Ask for Rachel she has outstanding customer service!

Organic, local, gluten free and vegan. Been bookmarked for awhile and finally made the time.
Love how they have set lunch pricing and you can mix and match as you please. 3 items for $ 23 is a steal with the quality of ingredients — Hodo Soy is ~$ 10/​lb at the grocery store, my salad probably had half a pound.
Portions are moderate if you just order one item. More like a generous appetizer. I ordered three and took most of it home with me.
The salads are really good. Sign me up for shiitake bacon all day! Soufflé was very rich and satisfying.
Ordered a couple of the ‘dillas’ to go — maybe a bit too oily and saucy for my taste, but the textures and fresh veg were excellent. Blatt is the better of the two.
And can I talk about the water?!? Parsley, lemon AND lime infused water. Um, detailed and detoxifying!
Very busy lunch service, but you still feel recognized and tended to. The staff made it a point to apologize for the postman knocking into my chair — he had already apologized and it was so surprisingly nice the restaurant noticed too!
Seasoning is perfect for my buds, I eat with very little sodium at home, so I am extra sensitive when I dine out. Appreciate SB really having a controlled use and letting the ingredients shine.
Love having more options in the area for the picky eater I have become. Fun spot for brunch and lunch.

I don’t even know where to begin. I want to have this meal over and over again for an extended period of time. Some think that vegan food is bland and tasteless but Sanctuary represents great vegan food — infused with flavor and color while remaining a relatively healthy option at the same time.
Pros:
–Service! All of the waiters are extremely nice and attentive
–Even the water here is above par. Served in a tall glass jar, infused with celery leaf and cucumber
–The vegan cheese plate is amazing! I forgot what all the flavors were, but my favorite was the pecan walnut pâté. The board is also decorated with crumbled raw crackers, sourdough, and sliced fruit
–We were surprised with an amuse bouche: mushroom pâté on sourdough. 100% better than real pâté, which is a little too rich and fatty for my taste. Very strong mushroom flavor, and just the right balance of mushy and chewy
–Tofu scallopini. Yum. Twice baked potatoes served with two thin blocks of tofu. A very flavorful dish
–Salted caramel cheesecake. The dessert lives up to the name! Creamy, sweet, and dense like a cheesecake should be. Coated with a layer of crushed almonds, this was probably my favorite plate of the night
Cons:
–The miso salad was pretty good, although I think more croutons would’ve added more texture to an otherwise ordinary salad
–I didn’t like the portobello polenta dish that much. In my opinion, it was marinated in a little too much balsamic vinegar, which overpowered all the other flavors in the plate
–The crème brûlée was very subpar… unlike a normal crème brûlée, it’s spread out on a much thinner, flatter ramekin, which I think really restricted the flavor of the dessert as we couldn’t exactly dig into it

I came here all the way from Sacramento (by train) just to dine here on my Birthday.
You gals did not disappoint!
Me and my significant other arrived here just as they opened and luckily managed to grab a table that was unreserved. They started us off with a complementary appetizer of their (mushroom) Pâté. Well dear jesus, this might be one of the best Pâté I ever had (granted non-​vegan ones gross me out)! I do hope they decide to add this to their menu or offer more of it in the future because Mr. Chef, that was a fabulous way to start off our meal. Plus the bread was so fresh and tasty!
For our actual appetizer we ordered seared «Scallops.» At first the size of the plate versus the price of the place was daunting. But at first bite, our wallets breathed a sigh of relief. The texture mimicked a real scallop and the reduction sauce was simply delicious. Give me some more bread and to dip and I would have been an even more happy camper.
We each ordered a different entrée; I ordered the Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Seared Bok Choy and he ordered the Tofu Cordon Belu. At first I was disappointed at how much more rice his entrée had than my lack of rice dish. (If you know me, than you know I love carbs and rice, hehe.) So I took one bite out of the Bok Choy and died. I kid you not they seared this vegetable so perfectly my mouth might have orgasm-​ed. Excuse me but the dish was excellent. The Gnocchi were not the traditional kind but they were pan fried which made them that much more exciting to chew. The sauce was once again marvelous.
I went and took few bites out of his dish and the Cordon Bleu tasted so savory just as a non-​vegan traditional one would. The gravy was delicious on it’s own and the rice actually became the least important thing to me on that plate (shocker) but fear not it was soft and fluffy perfect accommodate.
Of course I could not end my meal without ordering their Coconut Crème Brûlée. My all time favorite dessert in the world! (Also because my SO has surprisingly NEVER had it in his life!?) Well it certainly was perfection. The top was coated with the crispy sugar crust hiding fresh vanilla coconut crème underneath. The only disappointment was there wasn’t MORE.
The staff also brought out a compliment Birthday Chocolate Truffle with a lit up candle to celebrate my day. The truffle was rich and chocolaty goodness.
Everything is gluten free and you would not believe it.
Thank you for making my birthday such a special (and delicious) night.

It pains me to have to write this review, but I believe in constructive criticism, and I think that while their intentions are in the most sincere of places, Sanctuary Bistro really needs some fine tuning.
Whenever I mention this place, I get mixed reviews from my friends. I had had a really lovely dinner during their grand opening, but then a less than stellar one a few months later. I had been reluctant to return, but I tried them again on Monday night.
Everything needed a bit more seasoning across the board. The pizza was very bland. I didn’t like the sauce on it. Why not make a traditional tomato sauce with some sort of cashew cheese? I think that would be amazing. The veggies on top were clunky and seemed out of place.
They passed around free samples of savory pancakes with a creamy spread and sliced tomato, and this was by far my favorite. I ordered the Yuba Roulade, described as «smoked and spiced black-​eyed pea filled yuba wrap, oven roasted sweet potatoes and a kimchi finished with a spicy mustard sauce». I liked the accompanying veggies, but the yuba was completely underwhelming and not quite the star of the dish. I would not order this again.
Despite the underwhelming entrée, I absolutely LOVED the dessert, and I think this is where they excel. The raw salted caramel cheesecake was fabulous, and definitely something I would recommend to all of my friends.
They are an all organic, gluten-​free, and plant-​based eatery and they donate part of their profits to animal sanctuaries, which really resonates with me, but I just worry that non-​vegans trying their food for the first time might get put off. Please work on seasoning your dishes. It’s very easy to completely elevate a dish with just a little bit of salt, pepper, and spice.
I still haven’t tried their brunchy brunch, but I’ve been told it’s amazing. Perhaps I will try it someday and report back.

Sanctuary Bistro is a sustainable, organic, vegan, and gluten-​free restaurant that donates a portion of their profits to local animal sanctuaries. I absolutely love this concept and commend them for being generous to animal sanctuaries! I’m not gluten-​free but it’s nice to know that people with celiac disease can dine here and not have to worry since it’s a completely gluten-​free kitchen.
So far I’ve tried dinner twice and tried their brunches twice. I have to say that I prefer their brunches a lot more than the dinners. I give them 3 stars for dinner but bump them up to 4 stars for their delicious brunch. For their brunch, I believe I came last September for my friends birthday and I remember that we all enjoyed our entrees as well as our kombucha mimosas. We’ve tried the scrambles, the rancheros and the tofu & waffles and it was all very good.
As far as dinner, I dined there last night and felt that it needed more improvement as far as seasoning goes. We ordered the soup of the day which was a Cauliflower Potato soup, small plates such as the Dynamite Futomaki Roll, Harvest Pizza, Galette Bretonne, Oyster Mushroom Cakes, and I had the Mushroom Risotto as my entrée. Not sure if they intended to be low sodium or something, but I had to put salt and pepper in my soup and also my risotto. The pizza was also very bland. Dessert was the highlight of our meal; we had the Raw Cheesecake of the day which was a Salted Caramel. It was divine and delicious!
As far as the service, I have no complaints. They were very attentive and made sure we had everything we needed.
Not sure if I’ll come back for the dinner, but I’ll be back for the brunch for sure!

Winner winner, unchicken dinner!
Sanctuary bistro is not just good gluten-​free and vegan food. It is excellent food, period. It can easily compete with gluten-​full and non-​vegan food.
I’m not usually a fan of tempeh, but the tempeh in both the blat-​dilla and the reuben-​dilla was good.
The blat-​dilla (B-​L-​A-​T-​deeya, as in quesadilla) was wonderful. The textures and flavors of the avocado, savory shiitake bits (I will not call it bacon. It’s just tasty bits of shiitake – tasty, but not at all like bacon)…now where was I? Oh right, all the flavors came together into a fresh, savory party in my mouth. The crispy fried brown rice tortilla added a perfect amount of crisp and cohesiveness to every bite.
The reuben-​dilla was probably my favorite if only for the sauce. What can I say, I’m a sucker for tangy sauces.
The crème brûlée broke all my conceptions of this dessert. The caramelized topping on a tenderly sweet vanilla pudding that was not as delicately smooth as traditional crème brûlée, but still really good in its own right.
I am very impressed sanctuary bistro. You’ll be seeing more of me. Plus at $ 8/​item for lunch, it’s very reasonably priced.