Get 20% off using coupon Code #NABATI20
EN
Nabäti Eatery is a vegetarian restaurant in Rotterdam, at Keizerstraat 168 in the centre. That is the whole claim and there is nothing behind it that needs qualifying. There is no meat in our kitchen: no chicken, no lamb, no beef, and no meat version of anything on the menu.
We cook Jordanian and Levantine food, which is a kitchen that was largely vegetarian long before anyone in Europe used the word. Chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, aubergine, pomegranate, za’atar, fresh herbs and warm bread. Every dish can also be made vegan, and most of it already is.
Most vegetarian menus are a section of a menu. Ours is the menu. There is no separate list, no single dish held back for the vegetarian at the table, and no line in the kitchen where meat is being cooked next to your food. Fifty-five dishes, and not one of them has meat in it.
What you will find is dairy, in a few specific places: halloumi, yoghurt, the yoghurt tahini dressing, ayran. The menu page marks every one of them, and where a dish can be made without the dairy it says what the swap is.
Hummus, spicy hummus, msabbaha, baba ghanouj, muhammara and foul mdammas, each with warm pita, plus hummus topped with falafel. That is the centre of the menu, and all seven plates are marked vegan as served.
Falafel fried to order, by the three, six or twelve, and the stuffed falafel filled with onion and sumac. Six sandwiches: three are marked vegan as served, two are vegan on request with the non-dairy dressing, and the halloumi one is the halloumi one.
Five bowls: three fatteh, layered on chickpeas and crisp bread, and two built on salad. Two platters, and three sharing boxes made for a table rather than a plate. All five bowls are marked vegan on request, and the change is the non-dairy dressing.
We are in the middle of the Keizerstraat, about five minutes on foot from Rotterdam Blaak and a short walk from the Markthal. Half sandwiches and the small plates are the quick end of the menu. The bowls and the platters are the end you sit down for. Take it away from the counter, or order through Uber Eats or Thuisbezorgd if you would rather not leave the desk.
Rotterdam has plenty of vegetarian restaurants, and most of them are European kitchens with the meat taken out. This one never had it in. Levantine cooking builds its main dishes out of pulses, bread, vegetables and sesame because that is what the table was always made of, not because something was removed from it.
That shows up in a specific way once the food arrives. The vegetarian dishes here are not lighter versions of something else. Fatteh, foul mdammas and hummus are the main event where they come from, and they are the main event here.
A filled leaf means vegan as served. An outlined leaf means we make it vegan on request, with the change written next to it. So the menu answers the vegetarian question in one word (all of it) and the vegan question dish by dish.
There is no meat in our kitchen, we serve no alcoholic drinks, no alcohol goes into the cooking, and there is no animal rennet in our halloumi or our yoghurt. Everything we serve is halal by composition. We do not hold a halal certificate and we will not tell you that we do.
What halal by composition means here
Every dish on the menu page carries its allergen line, taken from our own kitchen’s allergen sheet, and nearly every one carries a vegan mark beside it. Our kitchen handles all of the allergens listed on that menu and equipment is shared between dishes, so please tell our staff about an allergy before you order. The full allergen sheet is downloadable from the menu page.
Keizerstraat 168, 3011 GH Rotterdam. Rotterdam Centrum, close to Blaak.
