707 West 47th Street | 816-561-5415
We can't believe it's been more than a decade since we last recognized Eden Alley as Kansas City's best vegetarian restaurant. Let's get a few caveats out of the way: The hours seem to change often enough that a call or a quick iPhone website consultation is always in order when you're hungry for great fake-meat tacos, and this church-basement restaurant has never bothered getting a liquor license. (Just think of how fast and how well a vegetarian's stomach can absorb delicious booze without all that pork in the way. We absolutely know what we're doing with this whole no-animal-flesh thing.) It isn't the cheapest place to fill your grill with tofu. There are, in fact, other places in the metro that offer deeply satisfying vegetarian dishes alongside the expected cowtown moo-moo, and Eden Alley isn't properly vegan (thank God or Wisconsin or somebody). And did we mention that it's in a church basement (the lower level of Unity Temple on the Plaza)? Yet these elements aren't drawbacks once the food — the hearty, carefully made, attractively served food — is set in front of you by some good-looking fellow healthy eater. Right in the heart of the steakiest district of the meatiest metro west of Chicago and north of Texas, you're hiding in plain sight, eating from a menu that has no parallel anywhere else in town.
