We offer a Thai vegan menu, Gluten-free menu, SOS-free menu, fruitarian menu, Jain menu and Swaminarayan menu, along with peanut free options and low and no oil options, dishes packed with vibrant flavors.
Phone: 929 462 7272
E-Mail: rsvp@chakra.kitchen
Menu: View Our Menus
Address: 317 East 5th St. NY, NY 10003
Our foundation is in Thai vegan cooking, creating all plant-based variations of traditional recipes while maintaining authenticity. A Thai vegan diet focuses on the healthiest components of Thai cuisine.
In line with tradition we grind spices, prepare pastes and base ingredients daily to maintain the utmost freshness in our dishes. We source the highest quality ingredients like galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, lime and chilis.
Our specialities include papaya salad, mango salad, glass noodle salad, mountain curry and drunken noodles. Though absent of animal products, our Thai dishes are as vibrant and delicious as the traditional recipes they are based on.
We make all of our dishes to order, so if there are particular ingridents you want to exclude we'll be happy to accommodate you using substitute ingredients that are compatible with your diet.
Most of our recipes are naturally gluten-free being that they are rice based and we only use wheat free soy sauce in our kitchen. Therefore creating an all gluten-free menu was a manageable task.
Our gluten-free dishes include nearly the entire selection of our Thai vegan dishes, as well as many of our fruitarian dishes such as the quinoa stew.
We take particular care with our kitchen process knowing that some of our customers may have sensitity to gluten that ranges from moderate to extreme.
Whether you like dishes spicy or mild, light or comfort heavy, at Chakra we make a diverse selection of different dishes on our gluten-free menu.
We offer a large selection of Jain friendly dishes. We can make our dishes strict Jain, meaning without onion, garlic, eggplant, mushrooms, potato, carrots and all other root vegetables. Additionally we don't use cauliflower, broccoli and a number of other types of produce prohibited in a traditional strict Jain diet. Though we can also make our dishes with exceptions, just let us know what you prefer when visiting our restaurant.
A Jain diet also avoids animal products. Since we are an entirely vegan restaurant our food naturally fits within the Jain restrictions regarding animal products.
Interestingly, we are the only restaurant in New York City that makes Jain friendly drunken noodles (Pad Kee Mao) and Pad See U. Every local manufacturer of wide rice noodles currently uses potato starch in these dishes. At Chakra we make our own wide rice noodles from scratch without the use of potato starch.
Similar to a Jain diet, a Swaminarayan diet excludes onion and garlic (referred to as Tamasic or Tamsik), most animal products and certain types of fruits and vegetables. Unlike a Jain diet, Swaminarayan philosophy allows for the consumption of certain root vegetables such as potatoes. Also followers of Swaminarayan philosophy allows for eating schedules which include later hours in the evening.
A Swaminarayan diet is also compatible with a fruitarian diet even though the origins of the latter may not have a direct connection to India, where the Swaminarayan philosophy began.
Our Swaminarayan menu includes salads, soups, massaman curry, green curry, red curry, noodles and rice stir fry dishes carefully prepared to meet the dietary requirements of our customers.
Fruitarian refers to not just sweet fruits but all edible parts of flowering plants containing seeds including pumpkin, snap peas, beans and lentils. Other fruits we use (which are commonly referred to as vegetables) are tomatoes and squash. The seeds of many fruits are also an important part of a fruitarian diet including pumpkin seeds, cashew nuts and coconut.
Our fruitarian dishes include cucumber salad, watermelon gazpacho, quinoa stew, fusion pasta and healthy color balanced bowls which incorporate produce of diverse color ranges for well rounded nutrient rich meals. Fruit of similar color tend to contain similar nutrients, therefore a meal which is colorful tends to contain a wide range of beneficial nutrients in addition being aesthetically pleasing.
The general philosophy of a fruitarian diet centers on harvesting ingredients in a way which does not destroy plants and makes a minimal impact on the environment.
The SOS Free Diet gained popularity in health and wellness circles in the 2010s, though the health impact from high levels of salt, oil and sugar became widely understood as early as the 1950s as dietary research expanded. Since then, it has generally been accepted that eating large amounts of salt is unhealthy. Likewise large quantities of oil, low quality in particular, are known to be unhealthy for consumption. Also, studies have demontrated that large amounts of sugar can be as detrimental to one's health as excessive amounts of salt.
As a result of these dietary revelations, the SOS-free diet was born. Food can taste great without the use of salt, oil and sugar. At Chakra we've developed variations on our recipes that omit the use of salt, oil and sugar altogether, as well as recipes using low amounts of salt, oil and sugar for those customers only seeking reduced amounts of each.
Learn more about plant-based ingredients by browsing our Ingredients Index featuring ingrdients that we currently use to make our dishes, as well as ingredients that we are inspired by, to include in future recipes we're developing.
The full potential of plant-based ingredients is often not embraced in the culinary arts, and at Chakra we not only strive to create great tasting dishes but also promtote the unique properties and health benefits of the hundreds of suitable cooking ingredients that belong to the plant kingdom.
Nature provides a wide range of options for vegan cooking, each ingredient possessing with nuanced differences in taste and the ability to create culinary melodies when combined. We invite you to explore the intricacies of ingredients.