Good Food, Good Karma At Café Reconcile

Today’s entry from Daniele, our vegetarian correspondent, serves up a reminder of how one local organization combines community responsibility with culinary training. -Leslie

My boss is retiring at the end of the year, so she took my coworker and me out to a farewell lunch at Café Reconcile. I feel like most people who live in New Orleans already know the story behind this restaurant, but my coworker who grew up in Central City had no idea so here is a one sentence synopsis: Café Reconcile is a program that works with at-risk youth to teach them the ropes of the restaurant industry and build their self-esteem. Awesome!

Café Reconcile serves traditional New Orleans cuisine, which can be tricky for a non-seafood-eating vegetarian like myself. Ah, but I have a tried-and-true trick up my sleeve for finding a vegetarian meal in a seemingly un-veggie-friendly environment. Side dishes! Café Reconcile seems to already know this trick as they have something called a “Veggie Plate” on their menu which is an entrée made up of your choice of 3 sides. I chose the mashed sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and collard greens.

“What?! Collard greens?! Collard greens aren’t vegetarian, Daniele! They are full of cured pork products and turkey necks!” you may be yelling at me.

Thank you for your concern. You’re sweet. But the staff assured me that the collard greens at Café Reconcile are indeed vegetarian. I didn’t see any meat products in them; I didn’t taste any meat products in them. What I did taste were some really good collard greens!

The rest of the food was really good, too. The sweet potatoes were sweet and rich. The mac and cheese was super tasty and my portion had a few browned crunchy bits in it which are the best part of baked macaroni and cheese. Sure, these are all dishes that you will encounter all the time in New Orleans, but what sets Café Reconcile’s food apart from most of those places is that you can tell this one’s got heart. Sure the service can be a little spotty, but it’s easy to forgive these kids because they are very sweet and you can tell they are trying. It also helps that they are well supervised, so any mistakes that might happen are quickly corrected.

Feel like doing some good with your dining dollars? Head over to Café Reconcile.