A cozy East Village spot, Souen serves up nourishing, macrobiotic Japanese-inspired dishes overflowing with fresh veggies and light flavors, perfect for health devotees.
"After the traveling and the pancakes and the booze you’re going to need to sit down, face your fears, and have a vegetable. Food is medicine and anytime I’m feeling run down I immediately head to Souen for their macro plate with tofu dill dressing and side of hot sauce. It’s so healing for people who don’t take care of themselves at all." - cat cohen
"A New York mainstay since the '70s, the prevailing theory at Soeun is an old-school Japanese-based macrobiotic one: there is no meat, dairy, or eggs on the menu and certain veggies are prohibited. One could argue that the cult of the macro plate began here, but there are plenty of other dark green veggies, grains, beans and fish on the menu to leave you feeling pleasantly sated. Salmon or black cod can be ordered with teriyaki sauce; the yuba, tofu "skins" are served with Chinese cabbage, carrot, and scallion in a tamari kombu broth. Both downtown spaces (the other is in the East Village) are light-filled and sparsely decorated. Bonus: They deliver."
"The 1970s saw the birth of the tofu cheesecake, one of the first of which debuted in 1971 at the New York macrobiotic restaurant Souen." - Alicia Kennedy
"Although Souen’s SoHo outpost closed in 2019, you can still order their iconic macro plate from the East Village location. Long favored by the fashion crowd, the wholesome dish comes with steamed kale, broccoli, kabocha squash, carrot, wakame, beans, and rice, plus your choice of dressing (get the miso-tahini). Request the restaurant’s craveable maze rice — brown rice mixed with marinated burdock, carrot, shiitake, and kombu — for an extra $2." - Emily J. Wilson
"Despite a passionate campaign to try to save it, the nearly 50-year-old health-centric restaurant Souen has closed." - Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
