Salmon, lasagna, pizza, nachos loaded with cheese and sour cream”¦ From the menu, you’d never know this was a vegan restaurant. But not only are all the dishes at OrganicLives completely vegan, they’re also completely raw. That is, nothing has been heated over 46 ° C.

“It’s all live food. There are no grills or stoves here,” says owner Preet Marwaha by phone from his restaurant.

Well, restaurant isn’t quite the right term. The place consists of a few tables and a counter that looks into a glassed-in production facility. That’s where food for the table-service eatery and accompanying takeout deli, as well as products for his on-line store, are made. There’s also a row of coolers and shelves stocked with products for sale, such as coconut water and goji berries. Off to one side is a windowed conference room that will soon operate as a cooking school.

“The purpose of OrganicLives is to facilitate change,” says Marwaha, who opened the place last December. “It’s to reconnect people with the food that they eat and how that affects their health and the planet.” To that end, his food contains no meat, dairy, sugar, processed oils, corn, or gluten. Ingredients are all organic, often local, and sourced from small farms and those with fair-trade practices when imported.

Marwaha explains that the menu doesn’t read like a vegan or raw-food menu, using familiar terms like “salmon” and “cheese”, because he wanted it to appeal to everyone. It features ethnically diverse dishes, so that people will say, “Wow, I can relate to these things in a lot of different ways.”

Offerings include caesar salad, Thai curry, sushi, gazpacho, and tortilla soup. There’s even a French Country Feast that includes lavender bread and chive foie gras.

Of course, the “meat” and “dairy” products are not what they seem. The “salmon” is really a mixture of sprouted seeds and nuts shaped into a fillet and dehydrated. The “cheeses” are nondairy spreads made of macadamia nuts, pine nuts, and more, ground into a paste. And the foie gras isn’t the controversial duck liver version but a vegan spread made of sprouted pecans and fresh veggies. (Nonetheless, the name doesn’t sit well with some; Marwaha plans to change it.)

Soups are served cold and bread products are dehydrated, not baked. For example, crackers and pizza shells are made of dehydrated vegetable purées, and the breads are made from sprouted almonds ground to the consistency of flour. “I can create just about anything you can imagine from fruits and vegetables,” Marwaha says.

Although he doesn’t have formal training as a chef, Marwaha has spent 20 years reconciling his love of food with his own dietary restrictions. “Cooking has always been my passion,” he explains. Growing up in Calgary, he was preparing meals for 500 people at Sikh temple gatherings by the age of 14.

But at age 18, he was diagnosed with colitis. Doctors told him he would need to have part of his colon removed. “Your whole life flashes before your eyes,” he recalls. “I was scared enough that I was going to do anything.” He switched to a plant-based diet literally overnight. He managed to avoid having surgery, his colon completely healed, and he’s spent the last two decades experimenting with vegan and raw dishes.

So how does the food taste? Really, really good. I tried the lasagna, which was fresh, creamy, and delicious, with wisps of delicately overlapping zucchini layered between fresh tomatoes, nutmeg–macadamia nut cheese, and hemp basil pesto. The visual appeal was worthy of a fine-dining establishment. The caesar salad accompanying it was better than most nonvegetarian versions, coated in a silky pine-seed herb dressing packed with flavour. The salty, spicy, almond-based croutons were utterly addictive.

The cold tortilla soup brought heat to my face with its bird’s-eye-chili sting. I missed the crunch of the usual tortilla strips, but the velvety paprika-and-cumin-flavoured broth was still satisfying. The Tuscan wrap, however, lacked substance. The dehydrated-vegetable wrapping (think fruit leather) was spread with a yummy “cheese”, but it wasn’t strong enough to support the filling, which was mostly sprouts, anyway. The sushi, however, delivered in both taste and texture. My order of 12 maki-style pieces included three variations, all stuffed with veggies like julienned carrot, cucumber, bell pepper, and mango. One had sprouted pecan pí¢té; another sprouted walnut paste; and the last minced raw parsnips instead of rice. I would choose these instead of regular sushi any day.

The trouble is, the atmosphere at OrganicLives doesn’t match the high quality of the food or the prices charged. Starters run $5 to $8 and mains $10 to $18. Smoothies and lattes are a painful $7 each. Yes, I know you’re paying for good, sustainably sourced ingredients. But I want a bit of décor if I’m dropping over $20 for my meal.

Still, once you taste the food, you’ll want to know how Marwaha does it. He says his cooking classes already have a wait list of 150 people, and that 30 to 40 percent of his eatery’s customers aren’t vegetarian. Looks like he might just win over meat eaters one tasty, raw vegan dish at a time.