Have you been noticing a lot of beets on the menu lately? I remember despising beets as a child in South Africa, where my grandmother loved to serve pickled beets from a jar as a side dish and I would try, mostly unsuccessfully, to hide them rather than eat them. Talk about getting caught red-handed. These days I’ve developed a taste for the sweet, earthy vegetable. The fact that it’s a nutritional powerhouse doesn’t hurt – we all like kale more than we would if it had the nutritional value of iceberg, right? There are many restaurants in town embracing the beetroot but I certainly have my favorites. The Bibb Lettuce Salad at Station 400 features roasted beets, and if you add their incredibly tender and flavorful grilled chicken you have a real power lunch on your hands. Ionie makes an addictive juice with beet, apples, ginger and lime aptly named True Blood as the restorative powers of this juice include lowering your blood pressure. Sophie’s at Sak’s makes the prettiest beet dish in town, served with creamy burrata, tomato and arugula. Pair it with a glass of Prosecco and enjoy it on the terrace at sunset. You can’t “beet” that feeling. 

Pictured: Tomato, Burrata and Beet Salad at Sophie's