Gramercy Park Restaurant Pure Food and Wine Figures at the Center of ‘Bad Vegan’

At the center of the whole lurid tale is Pure Food and Wine, the celebrated eatery that Sarma ran to much fanfare for over a decade. Backed by investor Jeffrey Chodorow, she originally opened the site with her then-boyfriend, celebrity chef Matthew Kenny, in June 2004. Though the restaurant served only raw, vegan fare, with nothing heated above 116 degrees, it was popular from the get-go. Both vegans and non-vegans alike were enticed by the innovative offerings, which, by all accounts, were insanely delicious. Calling the place “the talk of New York,” an October 2004 Boston Globe article noted that “people who eat this way all the time come often, but most of the customers say they’re more curious than converted.”

Pure Food’s signature dish? Heirloom Tomato Lasagna, artfully crafted with zucchini slices, sun-dried tomatoes and brazil nut puree. The beverage menu was also fully mindful. As detailed in the Globe, “The wines are all organic and some are also vegan (this means that the wine hasn’t been strained through eggshells, sometimes used in the vintner’s process).”

Patrons were drawn to the restaurant’s warm environment as much as to the food offerings. Situated down a set of steps on the semi-subterranean ground floor of a handsome brick townhouse at 54 Irving Pl., Pure Food and Wine was stunning to look at! Featuring a dimly-lit dining room, a charming front patio and a large rear garden setting, the place was friendly, inviting and highly photogenic.

The eatery became especially popular with the celebrity set, with the guest list reading like a Who’s-Who of New York’s elite. Just a few of the luminaries known to have popped in include Katie Holmes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Natalie Portman, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, Kyle MacLachlan, Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Bill Clinton, Jason Lewis (which is ironic since his “Sex and the City” character worked at a raw food restaurant) and Alec Baldwin (who met wife Hilaria on the premises). 

Sarma and Matthew became stars in their own right, with Page Six declaring them the “raw food poster couple” and “the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of the New York restaurant world.” When the two broke up in 2009, it made big news. Deciding they could no longer work together, Melngailis purchased Pure Food and Wine outright via a $2 million loan carried by Chodorow. The place proved only more successful under her sole tutelage, “often serving more than 200 covers on a night and, with related businesses, yielding revenues of around $7 million and profits of about $500,000 annually,” according to Salkin. Those related businesses included a juice bar named One Lucky Duck located right around the corner from Pure Food and Wine, as well as a line of packaged goods sold by Whole Foods.

Then, in 2011, Sarma met Strangis on Twitter and the two began a whirlwind romance. By 2012, they were married. Things quickly deteriorated from there as the renowned chef began funneling more and more of the eatery’s money to her new husband. Though Sarma denies that she ever gambled any of the funds, Parade’s Jessica Sager reports, “An investigation found that Melngailis and Strangis first started making fraudulent fund transfers from the restaurant’s business accounts to her and Strangis’ personal accounts around January 2014. By January 2015, the couple had blown $1.2 million of Pure Food and Wine’s cash at casinos in Connecticut, in addition to spending $80,000 on designer watches, $70,000 in hotels in New York City (where they lived!) and Europe; and another $10,000 in Uber rides. The high-roller lifestyle caught up with them quickly, but it hurt Melngailis’ Pure Food and Wine workers first: In 2014, she owed her employees a massive five months’ worth of paychecks to the tune of $40,000. With legal fees added to unpaid wages, the debt to employees alone totaled about $63,000.”

The couple was soon on the lam, traversing the U.S. and living in various casino-adjacent hotels. Though employees tried to keep Pure Food and Wine open, their efforts were in vain and it shuttered for good in July 2015. Strangis and Sarma were subsequently arrested the following May and both wound up taking a plea deal, with the former spending a year in jail and the latter four months. They were both released in 2017. Though not much is known about Anthony’s whereabouts, Melngailis currently lives a quiet life in New York, with Leon, her ever-faithful companion, by her side.

Whether Sarma was complicit in the theft and fraud, or a victim of coercive control at the hands of Strangis is currently a hotly debated topic across social media. But maybe both can be true. As Alexandra Pauly writes on High Snobiety, “Melngailis isn’t totally blameless. She did, in fact, withhold wages from employees under her care and lie to investors. But surely, we can recognize her guilt while also acknowledging what she suffered.”

Today, the Pure Food and Wine space sits quiet and empty, its windows covered over with patterned paper. The menu box stands bare, the colorful tables and chairs that once dotted the front patio are long gone and twinkle lights no longer zigzag through the wrought iron railing lining the exterior. Why a new eatery hasn’t opened in its place in the almost seven years since the restaurant’s closure is anyone’s guess, though the Covid-19 pandemic likely has something to do with it. BuzzFeed also speculates that the site’s atypical raw-food-fashioned kitchen, which lacks ovens, traditional gas heating and fire ventilation, may be to blame, as well. Whatever the case, one thing is certain – New York is just one more victim of this scandal, with the city and its many gastronomes forever robbed of a once very vibrant and special restaurant.