Andrew Weil’s True Meals Kitchen is lastly opening in Tucson

Fifteen years and greater than 40 places in 17 states later, True Meals Kitchen is opening in La Encantada on Monday, Nov. 13.

“I’ve been lobbying for that for a very long time,” Weil mentioned early this month. “I believe there might be an enormous following for the restaurant right here. I’ve all the time felt that.”

True Meals Kitchen was Weil’s child from the beginning, when he approached Fox with the concept of a restaurant based mostly on Weil’s revolutionary anti-inflammatory meals pyramid. Weil and Fox haven’t been concerned within the restaurant since 2012 when PF Chang, lengthy an investor within the idea, took over the restaurant with plans to take it nationwide.

True Meals Kitchen’s menu and philosophy is predicated round Weil’s meals pyramid that carefully follows the traditional Mediterranean food plan.

“However I made it higher by including Asian influences from cuisines that I’m acquainted with,” Weil mentioned.

The emphasis is on contemporary vegetables and fruit, seafood and wholesome fat together with walnuts, avocados and extra-virgin olive oil, and complete and cracked grains. Following his meals pyramid, Weil mentioned, helps thrust back illness and preserve higher well being and, finally, stay longer.

“I believe it’s a very wise strategy to eat that on no account deprives individuals of delight,” he mentioned.

When he pitched the restaurant concept to Tucson native Fox, who began his restaurant profession with Wildflower on North Oracle Highway earlier than launching dozens of profitable ideas from his Phoenix-based Fox Restaurant Ideas, Fox was hesitant.

“His response was that well being meals doesn’t promote,” mentioned Weil, the world’s main proponent of integrative medication and the longtime director of the Andrew Weil Heart for Integrative Drugs on the College of Arizona. “I believe he thought I meant tofu and sprouts.”

So the nice physician invited the foodie to his house and made him dinner, creating the dishes Weil needed to see on the True Meals menu.

Fox was bought, largely, Weil mentioned, and the pair opened the flagship True Meals Kitchen at Phoenix’s Biltmore Trend Park on Oct. 27, 2008. When PF Chang acquired a majority possession of the model 4 years later, there have been 4 places, two in Phoenix and two in California.

The model is now owned by a consortium of buyers; Weil, who retained minority possession, nonetheless consults on the menus. He additionally attends a lot of the new restaurant openings, together with Monday’s in La Encantada.

“I believe I’ll eat there very often,” he mentioned of the Tucson location in La Encantada, which is a 10-minute drive from his house.

His go-to favourite on the menu is the traditional grains bowl with miso sesame glazed candy potato, which he tops with salmon. He’s additionally an enormous fan of the edamame dumplings and Korean noodle bowl made with candy potato glass noodles and pickled shitake mushrooms.

The home-favorite spaghetti squash casserole has remained on the menu since day one, vying for consideration with the most recent participant: pizza, together with pies topped with Southwest Bison or rooster sausage. There’s one other topped with roasted butternut squash and a vegetarian backyard pesto utilizing a cilantro pumpkin seed pesto.

The menu additionally contains beef and turkey burgers, salads and bowls, and several other seafood entrees together with wild caught tuna poke and Idaho rainbow trout.

“If you wish to have probably the most wonderful kale salad, have Dr. Weil’s authentic recipe. If you would like a burger, have a burger and also you’re nonetheless going to really feel nice as a result of the burger is made with a few of the best-quality elements,” mentioned True Meals Kitchen Chief Advertising and marketing Officer Rebecca Dye. “Every little thing on the menu is designed to be nutritious, nutritionally dense and wonderful tasting but in addition make you are feeling nice. You gained’t really feel such as you’re maintaining a healthy diet as a result of it tastes so yummy.”

Weil mentioned that was the purpose when he conceived of the concept 15 years in the past. An avowed pescatarian (no pink meat or poultry) and a self-proclaimed “superb house cook dinner,” Weil mentioned it has all the time been arduous to seek out eating places that match his dietary restraints.

“I needed a restaurant that I may go to and benefit from the meals,” he mentioned.

Weil mentioned he’s not stunned by True Meals Kitchen’s preliminary success and ensuing recognition.

“I believe we had one thing for everybody. You might go there if you happen to ate meat. If you happen to have been a vegetarian, gluten-free; there was one thing for everybody,” he mentioned. “And I believe it was great meals. The meals regarded engaging and tasted nice. We didn’t push it as a well being meals restaurant, however only a place that served great meals.”

True Meals Kitchen, 2905 E. Skyline Drive, will open Monday by means of Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fridays 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Be taught extra about True Meals Kitchen at truefoodkitchen.com.