The best dishes will fill you up but not weigh you down, and every meal is started with a carafe of water without ice. For an appetizer be sure to try I Am Pure — a lush salad made with seaweed, kale, carrots, cilantro, cucumbers and teriyaki almonds. The crunchy seaweed has a stalwart relationship with kale, and in a pile — with a coating of spicy, ginger-sesame dressing — it's hard to understand why the two are ever served apart.


If you are hankering for something decadent, try the I Am Grounded red-skin potatoes, which are roasted in garlic and olive oil and topped with pink sea salt and a spicy cashew nacho cheese sauce that you'll want to dip everything in — even your kale.

Under the raw specialties section of the menu, you'll do well to try the I Am Hearty pizza, but don't expect something savory. The crust, which is made from onions and nuts, is almost sweet, and the Brazil nut parmesan and pesto sauce only adds to the softness of the flavor. The BLT sandwich — a cooked specialty — is especially creative, with the "bacon" made out of sautéed maple coconut and piled onto a fresh panini slathered with chipotle aioli and shored up with crisp romaine lettuce, plump tomatoes and ripe avocado. The homemade veggie burger patty is mushy and messy, more like a sloppy Joe than a burger, but tasty all the same.

Don't miss out on the I Am Warm-Hearted grilled organic polenta with tangy puttanesca sauce and cashew ricotta. It's a lovely slurry of spicy tomato and warm corn dough in a bowl, and it goes well with a liberally poured glass of the Philo Ridge Pinot Noir. Another dish that is sure to please is the I Am Whole bowl, which piles salty sea vegetables, kale, housemade kimchi and sprouts atop a mound of brown rice or quinoa and soaks it all in an earthy garlic-tahini sauce as creamy as any ranch dressing.

The dessert list is long and the items on it fully realized. The Key lime pie is as fluffy as a little green cloud and just as delicious; and the chocolate-mint cheesecake will take your sweet tooth to a very sweet spot, as will the whipped chocolate mousse.

Eat as much as you like, because you won't leave feeling ready to unhitch your belt and lie on the couch in front of your latest Netflix conquest. And for that you can be grateful.

Café Gratitude: Location, prices and more

Location: 639 N. Larchmont Blvd., L.A. (323) 580-6383; http://www.cafegratitude.com

Prices: Starters, smoothies, juices and desserts, $3 to $10; raw and cooked entrees, $7 to $13; beer and wine, $5 to $10.

Details: Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. All major cards. Street and lot parking.

jessica.gelt@latimes.com