Family behind Cafe Mosaics opening new spot in Quarters
Specialists in vegetarian cuisine hope ‘to light up a corner’ east of downtown
The family that runs Cafe Mosaics, a Whyte Avenue eatery known for its coziness and vegetarian comfort food, is set to open a new restaurant just east of the downtown core.
The Moth Cafe will open in the former home of the Trang Tien Vietnamese Restaurant at 9449 Jasper Ave. later this month.
Like Cafe Mosaics, The Moth will serve plant-based food with an emphasis on raw and nutritious ingredients. Menu highlights include a Banana Blossom Miso Soup, raw pasta dishes and a Kombucha bar.
Thanh Lu and her daughters Jillian Khuong and Khuyen Khuong secured the location a year ago and started renovations in June. Khuyen Khuong, who has a master’s degree in architecture, designed the restaurant’s interior, adding an arched doorway and an inviting lounge area in the cafe’s northeast corner.
Cafe Mosaics staff chipped in, too, with Haylee Fortin designing the Moth’s logo and Sara Trimmer making hanging ceramic lights for the space.
The new restaurant lies in The Quarters, a revitalization zone east of downtown that the City of Edmonton expects could house between 18,000 and 20,000 people once it is fully redeveloped. (Only a couple thousand residents live in the area now.)
Khuong said Friday the family is committed to serving current and future residents in the inner city.
She was warned it would be difficult to win the Edmonton Design Committee’s approval, but the committee supported the family’s plans after she presented them last spring. She told the committee about the success of Cafe Mosaics and its community contributions.
For the past two summers, the restaurant has spent several thousand dollars funding student architecture projects that replace parking spots with pop-up public seating.
(There are 21 parking stalls outside The Moth building, it’s worth noting.)
By having The Moth open from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. and keeping prices low, the family hopes to appeal to the area’s diverse residents and become a community gathering place.
“People usually associate raw and vegan ingredients with higher prices, but we’re trying to make it affordable so anyone can have a taste and be a part of that lifestyle,” Khuong said.
“We’re trying to light up a corner on the street.”