DINING OUT

Story by Tara Ryazansky

Photos by Max Ryazansky

Vasantha M. Perera greets me at the new location of his restaurant, Andrew’s Healthy Food. The space, which is at 342 Broadway, is an upgrade from the former location at Broadway and West 33rd Street, which was known as Andrew’s Cafe.

My favorite part is the spacious outdoor seating area that he calls the tranquility garden. It’s peaceful and pretty.

“Our menu includes gluten-free, non-GMO, organic, vegan and non-vegan food. In families, sometimes each family member has a different diet. We cater to everyone under one roof, and everything is a healthy preparation,” Perera says as he shows me around the new space, which includes an event space and an indoor dining room.

Perera expanded his menu along with the square footage. The eightpage menu boasts foods from around the globe.

This is inspired by Perera’s culinary career, which has taken him all over Europe, North and South America. He got his start in his home country of Sri Lanka and then worked his way up the ranks to corporate executive chef in Saudi Arabia, he says. He went on to work in Russia and Dubai. He has worked for world leaders, including Vladimir Putin and Bill Clinton.

“I traveled a lot. I’ve been all over the world,” Perera says. When he became tired of his traveling schedule, he decided to open up a restaurant of his own.

“I thought I would have to go to New York, but I fell in love with Bayonne,” he says. When a small space became available, he went to take a look. “I saw the place and decided immediately. This is the place.”

He says that the restaurant was well received by the local community and also grew a following of people who were looking for healthy options because of specialized diets. Now, many of these customers have come to visit the new location.

“I have clients who come from all over the tri-state area. People like it and say it’s worth it to travel,” he says. “People from here say that it’s something different.”

Perera’s sons, Cavan and Andrew, whom the restaurant is named after, work alongside their dad. His older son Cavan is the general manager. “He’s studying business administration and food and beverage,” Perera says. His younger son, Andrew, helps in the kitchen. “He does all of the accounting, too. He just graduated in accounting.”

I was happy to see that my favorite menu items are still available at the new location. When I think of Andrew’s, I think of soups, and I’ve never had one that I didn’t absolutely love.

“We have vegan, plantbased soups with no cream, no butter. It’s healthy, but it’s delicious when you eat it,” Perera explains. “It’s the season for soup.”

Andrew’s Healthy Food offers a lot of soup options. There are non-vegan ones like chicken vegetable and clam chowders, but I love the vegan ones because they are surprisingly rich and creamy. Today, I try the butternut squash soup.

“Butternut squash is a very popular soup. We get organic butternut squash and bake it. There’s Vidalia onion, shallot and celery. We cook it with turmeric, which is a healthy spice. It adds a lot of beta-carotene. It’s good for the eyes. It’s holistically very healthy. We’re not using any salt. We use celery seed. It gives a mineral flavor, a salt flavor,” Perera says.

I am shocked to learn that there’s no salt because there’s no lack of flavor. The soup is delicious and slightly sweet from the squash.

Next, I have Sri Lankanstyle chicken curry.

“That’s an Indian-style chicken. My grandmother used to make it. I said one day I’m going to put this on my menu,” Perera says. “We make the spice blend from scratch. It’s healthy and holistically valuable. Twenty-one different spices are roasted and ground into a powder. We combine all of this with a little touch of tomato and fresh vegetables. Many places use the curry powder that’s available to buy online.” Andrew Perera

The chicken is flavorful and cooked to perfection. The spices don’t overwhelm the dish.

“It’s not spicy, it just has flavor,” Perera says.

The generous portion of meat and veggies are served over jasmine rice.

Perera wouldn’t let us leave without trying dessert.

“We have various cakes. We make red velvet cake with beet juice. We extract it, reduce it, we don’t have to put sugar in it because it’s so sweet. There’s no gluten because of brown rice flour and corn flour,” he says. They have many types of cookies, muffins and even a gelato bar with house-made vegan gelatos churned from plant-based milks.

I tried the tuxedo cake.

“That’s the chocolate mousse cake made of chocolate and cacao. The white layer is made of ground sunflower and cashew milk. It’s three-layer. It’s gluten free and vegan,” Perera says.

I would never guess that the cake is vegan and gluten-free. The texture is fluffy and light, which I think is hard to achieve without the usual baking ingredients. I doubt that anyone would pick it out as vegan and gluten-free if they did a taste test next to a “regular” slice of cake.

It’s the perfect finish of a delicious meal at Andrew’s Healthy Food.

I ask Perera how he does it. “Just years of experience,” he says. “Just doing it again and again.” — BLP