Vegan
Organic
Western
Take-out
Catering
All Raw
Restaurant and bar located inside a very large Whole Foods Market in Kensington. Food is mostly raw, some cooked, substantial portions, and well presented. Also offers a take-away selection. REPORTED SHUTTING DOWN 1ST WEEK OF FEB 2014.
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The Barkers Building, 63/97 High Street, Kensington, West London, England, W8 5SE
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Last update on 01 Feb 2014 by Guest
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Added by +++VeGaNiSaToR+++ on 14 Apr 2010
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25 Reviews
First Review by jptashiro
Ajolote
Points +1765
interesting raw food, I need to come back and try the cooked stuff - Edit
I ordered the raw lunch that came with a very uninteresting pair of creamy cashew cheeses, a fantastic pad thai and a juice of my choice. Seating by the kitchen, I saw lots of delicious dishes being served. The hamburger is super popular!
Read morePros: beautiful presentation, wide menu
Cons: loud
Guest
kuuupo
Points +168
Favourite by far - Edit
Even my meat-eating boyfriend loves Saf. It makes a change to be able to order everything on a menu, and there's broad enough choice to keep most happy. The menu also seems to change frequently enough to keep things interesting. We loved the dumplings and had them two visits in a row. We also enjoyed the squash risotto and aubergine pancake. The sorbet was a bit of a miss, but the rest of the meal made up for that. The decor is smart, but as it's contained within a larger food court it's best for lunch or early dinner. On our visits we've found the staff friendly and attentive, and they even remembered us the second time round. This place is first on my list for my next trip to London, and I'll be taking family when I get the chance.
Read moreUpdated from previous review on Tuesday December 24, 2013
Pros: Yummy, proper food, Totally vegan, Plenty of choice
Guest
Barbara Primo
Points +202
Good! - Edit
We enjoyed that restaurant in october, very nice, savory, healthy dishes. A lot of taste, nice shop corner where to find different food. We like it's vegan with a good part of raw. We will go again and again!
Read moreGuest
millavinilla
Points +237
Nice - Edit
Enjoyed our food. Had a lovely nut roast with gravy. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the cocktail I ordered- way too much vanilla. Other than that a nice place to eat above the wonderful world that is wholefoods.
Read moreGuest
gen6
Points +95
Yummy and varied menu - Edit
I visited last year and for lunch (a wrap or sandwich type meal) and wasn't that impressed, but I gave it another go and decided to try a 'meal' and it was delicious. It can be expensive, but there is a 2 or 3 course lunch deal with a selection of 3 different dishes from the main menu, so works out well.
Read moreGuest
KatieBatty
Points +1512
Delicious healthy food - Edit
This restaurant is inside the Whole Foods, upstairs. You can order take away or sit in the restaurant part which is nice.
Read moreMy partner had the peanut and pineapple curry which was delicious and very flavoursome. I had a few starters instead of a main - dumplings (they were a little undercooked but delicious), the vegetable chips (I didn't like these, I had never tried dehydrated vegetables before and they were very chewy) and the cashew cheese and crackers which was AMAZING! They make the cheese themselves.
We both had fresh juices which were really good. For dessert my partner had the coconut sorbet and banana ice cream which were very tasty. I had the chocolate raspberry dessert which was amazing. Great service, highly recommended, all vegan.
Pros: All vegan, Great service, Great healthy food
Cons: Some of the starters weren't the best
Guest
Steffi Giraffe
Points +79
Exquisite - Edit
I have only been to Saf once and that is due to the cost and not having enough birthdays. I sometimes treat myself to their products in my local health food shop though, but it is not the same as having their fresh produce.
Read moreIt is wonderful feeling that every bite you take of your meal is healthy, while still being delicious and special. I love how being dairy-free is not a barrier for their creativeness - they make fantastic cheeses and puddings regardless and I feel vegetarian restaurants should take note.
Fab cocktails.
Pros: 100% vegan, Innovative, Health-orientated
Cons: Public location (within shop), Perhaps too fancy for some tastes
Guest
LauraS🪷
Points +796
Amaze-Balls!! - Edit
We love Saf! There's a lovely choice of both raw Vegan, and cooked Vegan foods, snacks, deserts, and drinks on offer. We always try to eat raw, whenever it's on offer-the sushi is lovely, and we've also had the raw cheesecake. They have some lovely cocktails, too! Definitely worth a visit.
Read morePros: Raw and cooked Vegan food, Vibrant flavours, Lots to choose from
Cons: The other sections in the food hall!
Guest
Saddler
Points +165
Vegan treat - Edit
There is a great deal good to be said about SAF. The ingredients are well selected, properly prepared and presented in an attractive manner. The menu is modest in length (a virtue in my book)but has enough genuine choice to please most people. The staff were friendly and attentive and the service prompt. It is not tha cheapest place but by no means the most expensive, not in London terms. The reservation one might have is that it is alongside a large food hall on the upper floor of a largee food market. However: (a) it is possible to sit, as we did in a section that makes that less apparent and (b) the food hall, though not vegetarian, is a cornucopia of food delights and is a treat to walk around itself. With that reservation, this is a splendid place and thoroughly recommended.
Read morePros: Quality food well presented, All vegan, Good service
Cons: Food hall aspect
Guest
ChristianaHasldorf
Points +129
Excellent! - Edit
My daughter and me had a Saf burger each. It was so delicious!! We both thought that it was one of the best meals we had ever had. And my daughter is not even a vegetarian.. I am looking forward to get back to this place.
Read morePros: excellent food, big portion
Guest
cocoholic
Points +362
Very good raw food - Edit
I liked their raw food. Their guacamole and flax seed crackers were delicious. I also tried their raw lasagne, which was nice. Freshly prepare juices and smoothies are also available. Service was very friendly. Nothing to complain.
Read morePros: Good raw food offers, fresh and good quality, good service
Guest
anarchistanimal
Points +563
Nice but a bit overpriced - Edit
Nice food but rather overpriced. The raw options in particular were a bit small and not very exciting. I had better raw food at other places in London. We had the raw pizza and an asparagus crepe. The 'side salad' for both dishes was just lettuce. The atmosphere was also a bit pretentious (and yet food-court-ish at the same time!), it didn't feel like a vegan hangout, more like a posh place for rich people on a diet.
Read morePros: Fully vegan, Raw options, Well-presented
Cons: Overpriced, Atmosphere
Guest
MuK-UK
Points +262
Worth a visit, mixed feelings. - Edit
I have eaten here a few times. The food is excellent, but not especially exciting and not cheap, and I think it is telling that I have more often chosen to eat stuff from Wholefoods which I visit quite a lot than eat here.
Read moreThe service has always been good, and the venue is cool, but you can kind of feel like you are eating in a food court (which you kind of are).
Certianly worth visiting though, and I know I'll happily eat there again. Good for gluten free options.
Pros: Good food., Good service.
Cons: Restaurant prices, foodcourt venue.
Guest
jacqui2
Points +146
Favourite veggie place in London - Edit
I eat here with my mum every time we take a trip to London. It is nice to be able to have a glass of bubbly with a vegan meal, and we have tried a range of weird and wonderful dishes that are presented superbly and taste delicious. It is expensive (but this is a pretentious area of London), and you have to be a bit open minded with the menu - e.g. the 'pad thai' is more of an asian salad rather than a 'pad thai'. Our favourites are the chickpea pancake thing and the japanese dish (I've uploaded pics).
Read morePros: exciting menu, tasty food
Guest
CLRtraveller
Points +10737
great food - Edit
All vegan with many raw items and several gluten-free. Multi-award-winning kitchen, from our dairy-free milk, cheeses, sauces and dressings, all the way to our cakes and ice creams. Juices £5.25 (I had Easy Being Green detoxifier, chlorophyll, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, made with cucumber, celery, spinach, kale, lemon). Teas by the Pot £4; Fairtrade coffee. Six desserts, five of which 5 are raw, £5.50, including white chocolate and jasmine tart - white chocolate and jasmine cream with cacao nib crust, caramelized apricot sauce and espresso syrup; and cinnamon butternut squash cheesecake.
Read moreSnacks £4, including curried kale (raw marinated and dehydrated kale crisps flavoured with curried coconut flakes and sunflower seeds) and kimpura (stir-fried carrot buttons marinated in agave and cayenne pepper with arame kelp and black sesame seeds).
Wraps & sandwiches £7.90, including Vietnamese wrap and Saf burger. Soup of the Day. "Cheeses" plate. California Roll: avocado, enokki mushrooms, umeboshi puree and cucumber wrapped in parsnip rice and dusted with beetroot powder, served with orange ponzo dipping sauce and pickled radish. Also pumpkin risotto; and spinach and radish-top "quiche." Several salads, including smoked tofu; kale, avocado and walnut; sea vegetable salad; and a list of super foods you can add to the salads for £1. (I had Thai Red Curry for £14.45: butternut squash, aubergine, okra, spring onion, runner beans, organic Saf tofu cooked in coconut curry soup, served with mixed wild rice.)
Fantastic menu, but it was not a tranquil meal (1 pm Saturday), seated at tables between the juice bar and the noisy, busy food court. Might be less noisy in the restaurant section to the right of the entrance.
Pros: vegan
Cons: noisy location
Guest
vegan_mum
Points +330
Disappointing - Edit
After finding this attractive-looking all-vegan place with several raw and gluten-free menu items, our hungry party of six was eager to chow down. We arrived around 2:30PM when they didn't seem super busy, but they'd just served a large party, they said, so had run out of four of their most popular entrees. We ordered around the out items. But then...
Read moreThey didn't bring us any water. Ever. Despite empty water glasses sitting on the table throughout.
They didn't inform us that the chips and guacamole appetizer we'd ordered for the table came with only three (3) small kale chips. There we were breaking chips in half to share among the six of us. Inexplicably they brought large empty plates and set these in front of us as the three chips and 5 oz. of guacamole swiftly disappeared.
The service was extremely slow, albeit friendly. When our three-year-old made a disgusted face after tasting the pear-cucumber-fennel smoothie, the waitress offered to bring her a plain pear juice instead. The pear juice was frothy, brown, and tasted like pear. At £5.25 a pop, however, the smoothies were disappointing.
Our entrees were pretty to look at, but disappointing. I got the raw gluten-free Saf Bowl and the best thing on the plate was the plain undressed half avocado. The zucchini "noodles" were oily though fresh, the cashew "rice" was salted and unsatisfying (I would've preferred plain steamed brown rice), the marinated shiitake mushrooms were extremely salty (almost indelible), and the kim chee, while fairly authentic in flavor (though not texture--it was too mushy) to my pleasant surprise (I grew up eating Korean food), was also too salty. My husband's pad thai didn't taste anything like real pad thai, he reported.
The bill came to £90 (including our £9 tip) which was exorbitant given what we got in the huge waste of time in which we got it. Sad to say we will likely never eat there again.
One star for being all vegan. Another star for being friendly and trying to be helpful. Half a star for offering raw and gluten-free items that at least sounded and looked good.
Updated from previous review on Friday April 06, 2012
Updated from previous review on Friday April 06, 2012
Pros: All vegan, Nice decor
Cons: Horribly slow, distracted service, No water provided, Food was over-seasoned
Guest
s_k_
Points +656
Pleasant and convenient - Edit
Saf is an impeccable, slightly posh experience. It's part of the food
Read morecourt at this very large Whole Foods store, so you can either eat "in"
the restaurant (which really means in a slightly segregated space), or
take your meal to one of the communal tables and combine it with food
from other places.
The food felt substantial and very, very neat ("Saf" is, after all, a
word that means "clean" in several Asian languages). I didn't
discover until later that it's a raw-food place (nothing cooked above
48 degrees C), which means the technique did not outshine the food.
Of course, you'll pay generously for all this.
Given the location, it's naturally easy to combine a meal here with a
shopping run to the Whole Foods.
Pros: tasty, convenient location, can be combined with other places
Cons: not inexpensive
Guest
Veganessent
Points +109
Stellar. Awesome. Food! - Edit
Service is incomparable. Saf in on point. Presentation is beautiful. I love the cheese board. This really is fresh food for a clean palate. I am a spice fiend but you really can taste the goodness and freshness. Mushroom in chickpea crepe was perfect as are the Pad Thai and the curry and everything else. They go to such lengths with in-house produce- their drinks ...oh my....especially their mocktails. I love SAF!
Read morePros: Everything
Cons: Nada
Guest
fearless
Points +161
Ok - Edit
We had a soup, burger, two juices and two desserts. The juices were great. The food was OK but far from impressive. The service was quick which made for an easy meal but it was quite expensive for what you got relative to some other great veg restaurants around (e.g. Mildreds).
Read morePros: quick service
Cons: expensive
Guest
Glenys
Points +44
not what it says on the tin - Edit
Service in this restaurant was very good and the staff were friendly. However our meals were disappointing. I had a wrap with onion jam, vegan cheese and quinoa but could barely taste the onion and cheese. The "mixed" salad consisted of one type of lettuce although it did have a tasty dressing. My friend left half her meal and thought it lacked flavour. The "fresh pressed juice" came out of a carton. Overall we felt let down and would not eat here again.
Read morePros: service
Cons: not what it says on the tin
Guest
estefinparis
Points +881
Simply excellent - Edit
Just like the Shoreditch location, the Saf restaurant in Kensington is one of the best culinary experiences London has to offer. With a menu sharing some dishes in common with the Shoreditch location (such as the unmissable gyoza) the Saf at the Kensington Whole Foods also boasts some dishes of its own, equally delicious and satisfying. With its diverse menu of food and drinks, and whether it is a raw meal or one of the cooked options, Saf never disappoints me and always makes me wish they would open locations in other countries too!
Read moreGuest
maggiecotton
Points +129
Good - Edit
We tried this place again to see if it had improved. Yes it has, The food was just lovely, and they did have some cheaper options as well which is great. We had a chickpea Crepe which was divine (main course) and we also had a red pepper cashew cheese wrap which was very tasty. For desert we had the chocolate torte just lovely. Really glad we decided to try again.
Read moreUpdated from previous review on Wednesday June 16, 2010
We went this restaurant when it first opened and then again this week. The one in Shoreditch curtain street is much better than this one. The food is a little expensive for its setting in the middle of the wholefoods market. The first time we went we enjoyed the food, the second time the food was not wonderful, quite boring, and very expensive for a lunch time. It is good that everything is vegan but I think they could do better.
Pros: all vegan, good staff
Guest
ecoman
Points +42
One of the best - Edit
Besides the California experiences this is one of the most inspiring places to visit for a raww food enthusiast.
Read moreThe place has some fine dining components that I personally prefer, and the staff are gently, and not to fast. Wich adds to the fine dining experience. The food was OK, but the desserts outstanding and worth it all. And I liked the opportunity to have a glass of wine.
Pros: nice desserts, wine, Fine dining atmosphere
Cons: price?
Guest
Lucylu
Points +377
Tasty, but pricey! - Edit
We were shopping in Whole Foods and I was starving, so we decided to try out the recently opened Saf. Being vegan, it really appealed to me that I could eat everything on the menu. We both opted for wraps: mine, homous and bulgar wheat - very tasty, good herbs; his, Pad Thai (although nothing I would have recognised from the original Thai classic) it was really tasty and had a cook chilli kick! The fresh juice I ordered was warm, and so wasn't so much of a fan and very over-priced. My lunch companion had a vegan beer which he really rated.
Read moreService was friendly, but a little slow considering how quiet the place was at 4pm on a Sunday!!!
They had run out of both the puddings we fancied, so can't comment on them other than to say, you should get there early!!
Pros: Tasty, Vegan-tastic, friedly
Cons: pricey, Bit slow
Guest
jptashiro
Points +16
Great experience, but a little pricey - Edit
We went for the first time and thought the food and service were excellent. My wife and I ordered the Thai Green Curry (superb re taste and large curry portion, but would have just wanted double the rice portion) and the sandwich with tofu, herbs, aubergine, ginger (also very good). Our daughter had the kid's penne pasta which she seemed to enjoy. The service was fine considering that had just opened on a sunday around noon and the staff friendly. We ordered some water and fresh apple juice and our bill totaled a little over £30. A bit pricey for us, but we'd plan to go again just for the curry.
Read moreWould recommend giving it atleast a try.
Pros: excellent food, friendly staff, good portions
Cons: a little pricey
Guest
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