White Nettle in Sudbury will also offer craft workshops in 2020.
An arty family have opened up what is Sudbury's second vegan café - with plans to offer workshops and tuition in the upstairs spaces in 2020.
Trudy Anthony has been a vegan for 40 years (before it was trendy) and the whole family is either vegan or vegetarian, including daughter Lydia, who is part of new business The White Nettle on North Street in a former nail bar.
Petite in size (it only seats around nine people), the café/gift shop is a relaxed, homely, creative space serving informal, tasty, homemade food cooked by the ladies, with help from Lydia's boyfriend - a trained chef.
The café and takeaway is open from 9am to 4.30pm, stating the day with blueberry croissants and homemade cakes (apart from the gluten-free options, which are bought in), such as carrot cake, lemon and elderflower and chocolate fudge, and cookies. "We've got a Christmas range at the moment too," Trudy says, "like Rudolph ones with different spices a bit like gingerbread men!"
"At lunchtimes we offer a vegetable tart which we do with tortillas and homemade coleslaw, so that's nice and light. Our falafel wrap has our own gluten-free falafels and homemade hummus with salad and it can have chilli sauce. We also do avocado on toast with sourdough, homemade black bean burgers and the Moving Mountain burger."
Something that's been going down a storm, particularly with young vegans in the town is the range of pasties. "They're doing so well! We've got a cheese and onion one with parsley and potato, and also butternut squash with spinach and feta, and a vegetable pasty with swede, carrot and onion. We have vegan sausage rolls as well. We're doing something very different you can't buy anywhere else."
And that motto certainly rings true. Downstairs, as well as being able to grab a bite to eat and freshly ground coffee or speciality tea with soya, oat or almond milk, you'll discover a range of handmade gifts, with the upstairs space due to open in February or March for classes.
"I'm a glass and ceramic artist," says Trudy, "and I recently closed my studio down. I had a big one in Maldon so the priority now is that we have two big rooms upstairs to renovate. One will be my studio and the other will be training rooms so we'll be doing short classes on glass and print screening and lino printing. My older daughter is an art teacher so there will be three of us teaching.
"What we're doing so far has been brilliant. We couldn't have asked for more really. People have been so supportive in the town."
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