Earth Deli

If Earth Deli sounds like a place serving the nutritious and delicious named by someone selling grand gluten-free dreams, that’s because it is.

With eats as scrumptious as the moniker and as healthy as bodies one month from beach holidays prefer, Earth Deli is the new hippie kid on the culinary block on the corner of Lorentz and Slater street in Klein Windhoek.

Prompted purely by Instagram envy, my sister Mel and I make our way there on a Monday morning, take one look at the establishment and think “Thailand!”

Though not the spectacular budget hotels we languished in a few years ago, rather the cute backpacker spots we usually begin our trips with to make these fabulous things called friends.

Chilled to the max with simple cabanas, a no-swimming pool and deli service by genial vegan chef Vanessa Eichhorn who presents the day’s melon prawn salad and cashew cheese Earth Bowl with a flourish, Earth Deli is friendly, easygoing and just waiting to baffle you completely.

And by this I mean you can go ahead and eat in the living room.

Operating out of a spacious house replete with bedrooms converted to various eating areas, Earth Deli’s interior includes a lounge, a wooden nook and a room encouraging visitors to “chill, doodle, create”.

Mel and I flop onto the soft pillows below an offbeat book collection in the latter.

As our first local dip into almost entirely vegetarian waters, we’ve selected two heaped bowls of zucchini and carrot noodles stirfried in rosemary; polenta quiche with organic spinach, cauliflower and tomato baked in creamy polenta porridge astride olive tomato salsa, sweet masala rice tossed with dates, cashew nuts, aniseed, clove and cinnamon; and some curry roasted butternut.

Though the deal is organic and plant-based, Mel does add a little seared oryx fillet to her bowl while I pile on the protein of boiled farm eggs. Naturally, with so much health going on, we expect it to taste five kinds of terrible.

But oh boy, the flavour!

Topped with cashew cream cheese sauce and turmeric tahini, everything is surprisingly delicious boasting a wealth of flavours expertly combined to graduate the garden variety to the gorgeous.

A weigh-and-pay outfit that includes a speciality Earth Bowl of the day, Earth Deli is a little on the pricier side (two custom deli bowls plus an orange and carrot vitality juice cost N$260) but is well worth it for both the eats and the charming bohemian atmosphere.

As for Mel and I? We languished on the floor of one of the chill rooms for almost two hours.

Ambitions of blackberry mousse tart discarded courtesy of bursting at the steams.

Life outside forgotten.

Earth Deli is open Monday to Friday between 11h00 and 14h30. Orders can be placed either in advance or daily between 10h00 and 14h00 via 0815 793 548 or earthdelinamibia@gmail.com. Visit earthdeli.co or like Earth Deli on Instagram and Facebook for more information about catering and weekly menus.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram

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