I know what you're thinking. With a name like NOLA, you're presuming this is a Cajun-Creole…read morerestaurant or maybe even hopeful that Emeril Lagasse opened a Porto outpost of his New Orleans institution. Well, you'd be wrong. Now sit down while I tell you this is a flexitarian cafe that happens to make tasty dishes. NOLA is actually an acronym for "No Labels", a cooking philosophy that excludes preservatives, processed foods, and refined sugars.
Sound dull? Not at all. Jamie W and I were pleased with the dishes we ordered. First, we shared the 12€ Cauli'n'Cheese, a toasty mix of roasted cauliflower florets and housemade vegan cheese sauce, topped with their own specialties, salty gra-NOLA and "facon bits" (Photo 8). Loved the crunch. For his entree, Jamie went for the 15€ Green Bowl, quite a healthful mix of avocado, spinach, kale, edamame, pickled onion, Granny Smith apple, and broccolini.
It was also topped with the crunchy salty gra-NOLA and drizzled with lemon-miso vinaigrette (Photo 10). Very fresh tasting and probably too nutritional for my appetite since I ordered the heartier 18€ Salmon Curry with quite a pool of ginger-spiced green curry sauce. It came with a braised salmon filet accompanied by black rice, broccolini, kale, and toasted peanuts (Photo 9). It was definitely not vegan but still gluten-free and pretty satisfying.
We finished off our dinner with a couple of their specialty coffee drinks, the 5€ Iced Coffee Latte with coconut sugar and cardamom for Jamie and the 6€ Iced Vanilla Latte with maple syrup and oat milk for me (Photo 7). We really liked the quiet vibe of the place, and their karmic guidelines was printed on signs everywhere. We kinda felt bad for the dutiful server who had to take care of three floors of customers connected by a precarious spiral staircase.
FOOD - 5 stars...all the healthy aspects of food but with tasty ingredients
AMBIANCE - 4 stars...cool, loft-like setup, not loud
SERVICE - 4.5 stars...very diligent server
TOTAL - 5 stars...not Nawlins but better for your vacation diet
RELATED - Exploring Porto? Here's a collection of places I've visited and reviewed: https://yelp.to/CvqDjsR-ET