If your work lunch has you feeling uninspired, try zesting up your fare with a creamy fruit nutritionists love to buzz about — avocado.
That’s the main idea behind Italian entrepreneur Francesco Brachetti’s choice to open Avocaderia, a new bar that serves all things avocado, in Brooklyn, New York. Avocado toast, salads and bowls — you name it; they serve it.
Brachetti was living and working in Mexico when he fell in love with avocados, and knew he wanted to bring the healthy fruit to the states in a more versatile way for lunch-goers. With the bar, Brachetti and Avocaderia co-founders chef Alberto Gramini and friend Alessandro Biggi hope to flip the script on what fast food can be.
“That’s why we came up with the idea of making avocado-only restaurants that [are] focused on serving healthy and fast food — so that people can have this for lunch every day,” Brachetti told Fox News.
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Avocados are known for their creamy health benefits, like the nearly 20 vitamins and minerals offered in each serving. Plus, they're full of healthy fats that can help lower LDL, or bad, cholesterol.
“In Mexico, avocado is like butter in Italy," Brachetti said. “When the avocado is ripe enough, you just spread it on bread and it's like the best butter you can find in Italy, but its way tastier and way healthier than butter."
Whether you’re spreading avocado on a piece of toast for breakfast or lunch, it’s just about the only fruit you can sensibly use in any dish, Brachetti said.
“You can use it in ice cream, you can use it in cakes, you can use it on sandwich, you can use it to make guacamole,” he said. “I think the creaminess is one of the key successes of avocado.”
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Avocaderia’s dishes are made with fresh and organic avocados from Mexico, but Brachetti said their menu has received influence from all over the world. For example, the restaurant’s Mediterranean toast uses feta from Greece, olives and olive oil from Italy, and dukkah, a traditional Egyptian spice blend.
Brachetti shares the basics of how to put together one of their most popular dishes, the Beets and Blue toast:
Ingredients
1 piece of sourdough bread
1 whole avocado
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper
Roasted beets
Green Pico de Gallo mix (made with jicama, cucumber, and celery; store-bought is fine)
Honey mustard dressing
A few pieces of arugula
A few watermelon radishes
Nut blend (like black sesame and pumpkin seeds)
1-2 tablespoons of blue cheese
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Directions:
-Toast the sourdough bread
-Mix lemon juice, salt and pepper to make citrus vinaigrette
-Smash avocado
-Mix citrus vinaigrette with smashed avocado
-Spread the avocado mixture on the toast, and cut the toast in half
-In a medium bowl, toss roasted beets with a green Pico de Gallo mix, and add a honey mustard dressing; stir together
-Add a few pieces of arugula on top of the avocado mash
-Layer the beets and green Pico de Gallo mixture on top of the arugula
- Garnish with a few watermelon radishes
- Drizzle the honey mustard dressing on top
-Sprinkle your favorite nut blend on top, like black sesame and pumpkin seeds
-Finish by crumbling a tablespoon or two of blue cheese across the toast
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Brachetti and his co-owners plan on opening several more locations, starting with Manhattan, New York, and California in the near future.
For more info, visit Avocaderia.com.