In my tadpole years as a restaurant reviewer, vegan dishes were as rare as hen’s teeth.
These days, most operators have cottoned onto the notion that selling vegan chow is part of an overall strategy to accommodate as many parties as possible. Vegan restaurant offerings have grown dramatically in recent years. That’s not because vegetable-based lifestyles may be healthier for the planet and your body, but because it’s healthy for business.
Strong Hearts opened 14 years ago in Syracuse, not a city particularly known for its hippie contingent. In that decade-plus, owners Joel Capolongo and Nick Ryan, and their team, crafted recipes that satisfied blue-collar hunger with green vegetables and laser focus.
Now they’ve brought their offerings to Buffalo, in a downtown spot on Niagara Street that was last Ru’s Pierogi. It’s a restaurant where you might find yourself looking back at the menu as you eat, checking the address, asking your friends to reassure you that you are not taking crazy pills: “This is a vegan restaurant?”
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First, as you step up to the counter to order, a bakery case beckons. In ye olde vegan days, that might have meant scones arid as the Sahara, or wan tofu pudding whose main contribution to your life was to make you realize there are worse things than skipping dessert.
But those Strong Hearts cupcakes ($4.45) don’t look abstemious in the least. They look just like the cupcakes you might have had as a kid.
That chocolate number with the distinctive white spiral icing? Yes, it is filled with vanilla cream. And it is glorious. The Fauxstress Cupcake is a warning right up front that Strong Hearts aims to deliver customers’ childhood satisfactions remade for their vegan lifestyle. Then, for more adult tastes, the Mocha, of chocolate cake, Tipico espresso buttercream, and dark chocolate espresso bean.
Could I tell it was vegan? Let me put it this way: I was a professional taster there to review a vegan restaurant. In a blind taste test, I would not bet my own money on picking out which cupcake was made without involving cattle or chickens.
Before we continue, a grammar note: In the interest of brevity, this review is plant-based. Assume every nonvegan noun has “vegan” before it.
Strong Hearts starts off with a breakfast sandwich called Egg Trick Muffin ($6). Unlike your drive-thru versions, this one features an eggish tofu patty, a sausage patty and melted mozzarella piled into a butter-toasted English muffin.
Tofu at Strong Hearts redeems soybean curd with a vengeance. The Thai tofu salad ($12), with maple chipotle tofu and Thai spiced cashews over a bed of shredded red cabbage, cucumber, cilantro microgreens, shelled edamame and Thai vinaigrette, was an amiable dinner salad for all time.
Weirder still was the thrill I got from the Buffalo tofu salad ($12). Grilled cayenne-pepper-sauce-marinated tofu, banana peppers, blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing on chopped romaine. Solid chow in Zubaz flavors all the way around, a vegan selection for the tailgate for sure.
Loaded fries ($9) at Strong Hearts means fries with chorizo, roasted corn salsa, scallions and housemade cashew-based cheese sauce. Nachos ($8-$13) are house-fried tortilla chips, plus all the above and guacamole, jalapeños, pickled red onions, black beans, sour cream and cilantro greens.
“Chicken” wings ($13) come on a bamboo skewer that you eat around, yielding bites of tasty protein that I might have taken as dark meat chicken, if I wasn’t sitting in a vegan restaurant.
Now the mac and cheese ($8), I could have picked out from its dairy progenitor. It’s still a comfy, delicious bowl of pasta, though it evoked butternut squash more than cheese. Not so shabby for cashews, roasted red peppers and nutritional yeast, perhaps the closest thing vegan cooks have to Parmesan.
Sides ($4.50) to note include chipotle peanut noodles and creamy dill potato salad.
The chicken wing burger ($15), Buffalo-sauced chicken tenders on burger, housemade pickles, onion, housemade blue cheese sauce, made me wish I was three beers deep, such was its obvious allure as munchies food.
Like Strong Hearts’ other burgers, it’s a Beyond Burger, served on a brioche bun. Lots of folks like the Sassy molassy burger ($15) which sports avocado, grilled red onions, tomato, chipotle aioli and a molasses barbecue sauce glaze.
The place doesn’t serve alcohol. But there’s a coffee menu, and 30 flavors of milkshakes including Butterfinger, maple pecan and pineapple ($7.50 per 16 ounces).
Vegans who stick to their animal-free principles in restaurants are often forced to choose between their ideals and their appetite.
Not at Strong Hearts, which has given vegetable-based life forms in Buffalo a dedicated greenhouse to let their hunger bloom.
295 Niagara St., stronghearts716.com, 716-635-1777
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday
Prices: sandwiches and burgers, $6-$15; salads and plates, $8-$12.
Atmosphere: low-key sunny chatter
Wheelchair accessible: yes
Gluten-free: most of menu
Photos: See the dishes and spaces of Strong Hearts Buffalo
A vegan haven
Thai tofu salad
Buffalo and garlic parmesan vegan wings
Sun-drenched sitting area
A full case
Two kings
Vegan chicken wing burger
Step right up
Vegan mac and cheese
Sweet treats
Cozy seating
Tablescape of vegan dreams
Dining with a side of vitamin D
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