Seeking to dismiss the dogma that cites being healthy as hard, new to emerge within London’s growing wellness scene is a cold-pressed juicery and cafe that provides an impressive offering of raw, organic and cold-pressed juices, coffee and nourishing meals and snacks.
With only a couple of weeks to go until Raw Press Juicery and Café opens its doors on Dover Street, we caught up with the dynamic duo behind the opening to talk about the concept, must-try recipes and their launch collaboration with Deliciously Ella (including some seriously scrumptious sweet potato brownies!)
In celebration of the opening, if you’re in London next weekend we have a treat for you! From August 7th until the 9th stop by CONTENT an pick up a FREE Raw Press Juice with any purchase over £20. If you’re outside of London, do not fret! We’ll be featuring guest posts and recipes from Raw Press so no one misses out on the fun! In the meantime find out why we will be the first in the queue come opening…..
What inspired Raw Press?
Having spent some time in the US, my business partner Toby and I were aware of how huge the cold-pressed juicing movement has become in cities like New York, where there are now juice bars on pretty much every corner. Meanwhile, the London market is only just starting to embrace this concept. Cold-pressed juice is touted as being the new coffee and we wanted to be one of the first movers in London.
I should add that we are selling coffee too in our café, but juice certainly makes for a more colourful accessory, conveniently so as our first outlets are integrated with Wolf & Badger’s two fashion boutiques in Mayfair and Notting Hill! From another angle, our inspiration is the recognition that Londoners are increasingly becoming more conscious of having to slow down and look after our bodies in order to cope with the stresses of living in a fast-paced city. We are for the most part becoming more discerning about the quality of ingredients that we’re incorporating into our diet, and yet there still seems to be very few high-street brands that champion these values in providing an accessible, holistic and non-intimidating approach to nutrition and wellbeing.
With numerous juiceries opening throughout London of late, what makes Raw Press stand out from the crowd?
There are a number of features that differentiate our juice from many of the other products in the market, ranging from our recyclable glass bottles (if you bring back 10 bottles you get a free juice) to our focus on incorporating relatively unusual and premium ingredients. For instance, our ‘Uprooted’ contains orange, carrot, fennel, ginger, turmeric and argan oil.
Nonetheless, as I alluded to, the main differentiator is that more broadly than just cold-pressed juice, we are trying to create a community around healthy living, nutritious food and drink, and bodywork practice. We have a great space on Dover Street within which we are creating a full café offering, with a range of healthy, mainly plant-based food; in the evenings we’re running a schedule of wellbeing events and classes, including regular yoga sessions to help you unwind after work!
What beverages from your menu are you most excited about launching?
Besides our ‘Uprooted’, we’re really proud of our almond mylks. We are slightly unusual in choosing to blend our soaked almonds with coconut water instead of normal water, and then this is combined with Medjool dates, vanilla bean and Himalayan salt; we strain the liquid before also passing it through muslin to create a really creamy and amazing drink. Somebody told me that it tastes like melted Haagen-Dazs Pralines and Cream, which I think is a pretty good compliment as it doesn’t contain any dairy or refined sugars! We then serve our almond mylk plain, combine it with cold-brew coffee, or alternatively mix it with raw cacao powder to achieve the tastiest ever chocolate mylk!
We hear you’ll be serving food curated by the likes of one of our favourite healthy foodies Deliciously Ella – what can we expect to sink our teeth into come opening time?
We’re really excited to be partnering with Ella over our launch period for our range of salads and snacks, which include a number of dishes designed exclusively for Raw Press. You can expect creations like quinoa and hazelnut salad, zucchini noodles with brazil nut pesto, mini banoffee pies and Ella’s signature sweet potato brownies. We will also have an extensive and healthy breakfast offering, including bircher muesli and a selection of acai bowls.
We hear you have free wifi – can we set-up an office at Raw Press?
Yes, if you like you can bring in your favourite secretary, fax machine and water cooler and never go back to work again. Alternatively, you can use our toasters on the table to make yourself some artisan toast with nut butters for breakfast, peruse a selection of newspapers and on-trend magazines to impress your fellow ‘workers’, catch up on your emails / browse the internet for cat videos, before eventually traipsing back to your place of employment, preferably with a case of juice.
See you for there for breakfast August 15th when Raw Press will be open for business! If you can’t leave your desk or are hosting an event or party – get a Raw Press Delivery right to your door.
