DINING

Vegan cafe with Caribbean flair to open downtown

Grenville Kitchen also will have gluten-free bakery

Teresa Stepzinski
tstepzinski@jacksonville.com
Grenville Kitchen, a vegan cafe and gluten-free bakery, plans to open by mid-November at 311 W. Ashley St. in downtown Jacksonville. [Will Dickey/Florida Times-Union]

Grenville Kitchen is bringing all plant-based cuisine to downtown Jacksonville.

Jenielle Frith, owner and pastry chef, hopes to open the new vegan cafe and gluten-free bakery by mid-November at 311 W. Ashley St. near the Duval County courthouse.

The cafe and bakery will feature fresh-made entrees, salads, soups and pastries inspired by her native Jamaica, as well as the dual Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, she said.

"A lot of my influences flavor-wise come from my Jamaican background. I would like to introduce people to our cuisine as well as just Caribbean cuisine as a whole," Frith said.

Jamaican as well as other Caribbean cuisine, she said, not only tastes good but it also provides new and myriad options for Jacksonville area vegans.

"My mom has been a vegan for about four years now. The biggest issue she has is finding some place to eat on the go," Frith said. "So, even when she goes to restaurants that offer vegetarian options, she tends to lean more towards a salad or something like that just because there is no option to get like [vegan] comfort food."

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Grenville Kitchen intends to fulfill the craving for vegan comfort food.

Frith said she will showcase refreshing, healthy, good tasting food inspired by the flavors and dishes she's known and loved since childhood.

Everything is plant-based. That's the most important part," she said.

The menu will feature vegan versions of classic dishes as well as original recipes. Among the offerings will be Voxtail,a vegan oxtail, chickn' and waffles, mac n chz,vegan lasagna, collard green wraps and fried jackfruit. There also will be a roasted vegetable, lentil and caprese salads, along with vegetable fritters and spring rolls.

Daily specials will include pholourie, which consists of fried, spiced dough balls generally made from split pea flour and typically served with chutney. There also will be pelau, which is a traditional rice dish of the French West Indies.

She named the cafe and bakery in honor of her grandfather, whose last name was Grenville. Her family has long been an inspiration.

An 11-year restaurant veteran, Frith traces her love of baking and cooking to her childhood. She said as a youngster, she spent a lot of time baking and grew up in a cooking environment.

As an adult, she attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, where she honed and refined her skills. She went on to become a pastry chef at the Sandals Grande Riviera, Ocho Rios, Jamaica, as well as pastry chef and supervisor at iRie Couture Cakery in St. Augustine.

"Cooking, I definitely learned from my grandmother and my mom. I went to Le Cordon Bleu to be certified, and taught all the technical aspects of cooking. But flavor-wise and making it taste good, I learned from my mom and grandmother," Frith said.

Currently, the restaurant can seat up to 25 people. In addition to sit-down dining, carry-out also will be available, she said.

"It's a really comfortable setting for people who want to sit and read a book or work on their computer," she said.

Grenville Kitchen is undergoing the final city inspection process, and getting its vendors to deliver their products. The website also is under construction. Once all that is done, they will be ready to open, she said.

 Frith also has plans for the future.

"Eventually, I would like to offer vegan ice cream and we're working on that extension now," she said. But the primary focus is on the restaurant, she said.

"I am really excited about it all and have been for a long while. Now, it's just getting through all the technical aspects of it and we'll be ready to go," Frith said.

Teresa Stepzinski: (904) 359-4075