Whole Heart Provisions Opens This Week in Central Square
The second location of the plant-based favorite has a few new menu items.
Whole Heart Provisions in Central Square opens this week. / Photos by Brian Samuels
It’s now a bit easier to eat all your veggies—Whole Heart Provisions opens a second location in Central Square on Wednesday, April 25.
Founder and chef Rebecca Arnold is an alum of veggie-centric gems Sarma and Alden & Harlow. She teamed up with Roxy’s Grilled Cheese founder James DiSabatino in 2015 to create a fast, affordable, spot for healthy, flavorful salad and grain bowls—vegan food that non-vegans crave. It appears to have worked: Among other awards, Whole Heart Provisions was the Best of Boston vegetarian restaurant in 2016, and was also the only dining concept to win the MassChallenge startup accelerator program that year.
The new location, located next door to Roxy’s Grilled Cheese and A4cade, is larger than the Allston original. It also has some of its own menu items. Still focused on bowls brimming with fresh vegetables, bold spices, and crunchy toppings, the Cambridge location adds two new flavors: the Levant (with smashed cucumber, Japanese eggplant, cured tomato, red cabbage slaw, pickled cauliflower, tahini, harissa, crispy chickpeas, sesame, and falafel), and the Kaya (with red cabbage slaw, basil, green beans, currants, roasted broccoli, pickled jalapeño, coconut curry, tahini, and peanut crumble).
Allston menu favorites the Cassie, the Seeta, and the Mission, and the Miso are also available, and guests can create their own bowls with jasmine or brown rice, quinoa pilaf, and arugula or marinated kale.
A new side dish in Central Square tops green beans with basil, a savory orange-miso dressing, and peanut crumble. Whole Heart’s signature seared avocado and street corn are also on the menu. In addition to the made-to-order offerings, a grab-and-go case will soon be stocked with house-made dips, sauces, and more street food-style sides, plus bottled beverages including Fire Cider and cold brew coffee. Rotating flavors of Aqua Vitea Kombucha are on tap.
The original Whole Heart Provisions took over the former Root restaurant space, but new construction on a fast-developing section of Mass. Ave. allowed Arnold to custom-design this new location. She gave it a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, and polished concrete floors. Local designer Hilary Bouvier and painter Laura DeDonato Wiatt painted a mural inside, complete with more than a day’s worth of fruits and vegetables.
There are copper and maple tables with seats for 37. The ordering counter is marbled white quartz, and Edison-style lightbulbs give the space a modern-industrial vibe. It’s also full of plants, naturally. There will be 22 additional seats “imminently” on an herb planter-lined outdoor seating area.
Whole Heart Provisions just opens for lunch (10:30 a.m.-3 p.m.) through Friday this week, with dinner hours beginning on Saturday, April 28. It will also eventually serve Sunday brunch. The hours will be Monday-Saturday from 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Arnold and DiSabatino have a third Whole Heart location in the works, landing fall 2018 inside the Harvard University Smith Center in Harvard Square.
298 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-945-8991; 487 Cambridge St., Allston, 617-202-5041, wholeheartprovisions.com.
The Cassie at Whole Heart Provisions. / Photos by Brian Samuels
A feast (and some succulents) at Whole Heart Provisions. / Photos by Brian Samuels
