Vegan Mediterranean fanfare at Anixi NYC (Chunk Foods steak! 😱)

There’s a whole lot of pomp and show in the ambiance at Anixi, a vegan and Kosher Mediterranean restaurant in Chelsea NYC. Royal purple drapes hang floor to ceiling and blue velvet curved bench snake down the middle of the main dining room. A couple sparkling chandeliers dripping in strings of crystal dangle above and a couple mirrors hug the walls around.

There’s a whole lot of fanfare in the food too: I’ve never been to a vegan restaurant that relies so heavily on ultra-processed fake meat and meat products or masquerading ingredients as meat.

Exhibit A being the main reason I jockeyed for the trip to Anixi: Anixi’s grilled “steak” shish kabob made with Chunk Foods steak and served with grilled onions, tahini, garlic herb tapenade.

Chunk Foods steak is plant-based alternative that attempts to mimic the grain and texture of beef steak. The first time I tried Chunk Foods steak was at the annual Vegandale Festival held on Randall's Island. I was impressed, disappointed that the currently the steak is only available to restaurants, and wanted to see what others were doing with it.

At Anixi, the steak shred beautifully. I nudged a bit of tapenade and tomato onto my steak-loaded fork. It was under-seasoned and lacked the umami juiciness of a beef steak. Chunk Food’s steak is low-fat and low-salt. Because fat and salt often make up the flavor of a cut of meat, the fat and salted needed to be added back in in some way in something as luxurious as a steak. Anixi didn't make up any of it.

We were enchanted in particular by the (perhaps unnecessary, but to some fun) presentation of a couple of dishes that were brought out around us. Pink slices of Anixi’s Arak-cured “salmon” ($17), complete with photo-realistic white fat stripes, hung from three little hooks on a rack on a nearby table. I regretted not ordering it in the moment, but my dining funds thanked me later for exercising some restraint. The vegan runny, sunny-side up eggs atop the khachapuri ($24) pide (Turkish flatbread) that the couple beside us ordered also caught our eye. It inspired us to order the olive za’atar pide.

A server cut the boat-shaped pide with a pizza knife tableside.

The brine salt from the olives and capers couldn’t make up for the flavorless and tacky-in-texture plant-based cheese (nice cheese-pull though!). I think the harissa was missing because I didn’t spot green or red and I definitely didn’t taste anything spicy. Ditto for the preserved lemon. We won't bother with any of the pide next time. Definitely would not get again.

We ordered hummus, fire-roasted eggplant dip, and taramasalata accompanied by fluffy layered herb bread. The hummus was tahini-heavy. The eggplant was not much better. That vegan labne-based taramasalata, however, was insane. I searched for a coconut or cashew aftertaste, but couldn’t find it. Just creamy lemon slightly salty from the orange seaweed caviar goodness.

If you’re between ordering a side and not, order the side and make it vegetable. After eating bread, bread, and Chunk Foods steak, the date syrup glazed carrots and turnips were a welcomed vegetable break. The tahini drizzle didn't do much for us, but the date syrup and harissa was awesome.

I never pass on dessert. We were between the familiar and favorite ekmek kataifi ($15) (I was going to Yaya's Bakery in Astoria for ekmek kataifi almost weekly) and the rose malabi (GF) ($15). I picked the latter. I consider malabi in the same family as crème brûlée and panna cotta, only malabi is less rich since it’s a milk pudding thickened with cornstarch.

We got a giant serving. The neutral milk dissolved quickly on the tongue and left the slight aftertaste of floral rose, but nowhere close enough to bring us into soap-eating territory. The thin layer of strawberry rose water syrup upped the rose flavor a bit. Toasted coconut and pistachios broke up the monotony of creamy pudding texture.

If you ask my partner his verdict, he’s a repeat customer. It was his favorite vegan restuarant that we’ve been to. He wants to bring his parents and pointed out that there are a decent amount of gluten-free options to choose from for his gluten-allergic mother.

My opinion? The food was expensive and the flavor was lacking. I don’t know what food science spells were cast over the vegan ricotta, labne, Chunk Foods steak, or the milk in the malabi to make it all taste so neutral, but no flavor was injected back into those blank canvases.

We weren’t seated in the beautiful main dining room and instead in the same room as the bar, where table space was teensy (my water glass was dangerously close to the edge of the table). Tables were jam-packed into the space. I was able to rubshoulders with my neighbor. Servers had to shuffle and contort themselves around chairs, table, and people to take orders and deliver food.

Final verdict? Go for the fanfare with four or five friends (which is more likely to get you seated in the main dining room), not the food. Or don’t go at all.

What vegan restaurants in NYC are worth eating at? Where should you go instead for great vegan eats in NYC? I highly recommend hip and casual Jajaja (multiple locations in Manhattan) for the vegan nachos alone, which I tout as the best nachos or Cadence if you want something more upscale with a similar price point as Anixi.