Cultured Cafe Brews Up The Remedy

When you walk into The Cultured Café on State Street, you are greeted by the feeling that you’ve walked into as natural a habitat as you can find that is not actually outside. Philodendrons wind around glass jars full of fermenting vegetables on a wooden counter. Above, cotton ball-like clouds dot a blue sky ceiling. What the café serves is also as close to nature as it can be, courtesy of the café’s owner Alexander Silver Angeloff, who is trying to make the path into the world of natural health safe, welcoming, and delicious. 

With the Cultured Café, Angeloff has sought to create ​“an approachable place where people can go and they can spend $10, $15, $20 for their health’s sake and generally feel some short-term benefit from that, some immediate gratification from what they just put in their body,” he said, ​“and from that personal experience, open the door to the possibility of natural means of rectifying health issues or maintaining optimal health.”

At Angeloff’s cafe, a variety of food, drink, supplements, classes and events can be tried at a reasonable price and within a warm and supportive community. ​“One of my main goals with this is just to create an inviting environment that’s conducive to getting exposure in some different ways, and I mean the original ways of maintaining optimal health,” he said. ​“The things nature provides for us, the things we do here, are things that have been done for thousands of years. They have extreme levels of safety, almost no risk whatsoever,” and they are ​“what’s allowed us to get to this point to even create Western medicine. It’s the foundation of Western medicine.”

The idea that nature is at the heart of medicine and science is one Angeloff hopes to encourage at the Cultured Café.

“Science is the study of nature,” he said. ​“You can’t be outside of nature. Everything falls within nature and anyone who thinks there is some kind of dichotomy or battle between nature and science doesn’t understand science whatsoever.”

Angeloff, who grew up in Westville and attended college for environmental science, spoke of a ​“lifelong intrigue” in all things natural and healing. 

“I have always been obsessed with my own health and nutrition,” he said. ​“Even as a child I was reading the small print on everything from the cereal boxes to the shampoo and conditioner, and even though I didn’t know what 90 percent of it was, I was very interested. Then the internet came along and I started looking into all those things.”

Angeloff’s grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great grandfather were all pharmacists, who owned and operated the iconic Silver’s Drug Shop in West Haven. Memorabilia including ads from newspapers and photos from that shop hang on the back wall of the café.

“I guess it’s in my blood, and there’s always been that talk at the dinner table,” he added with a smile. 

His personal experience with a number of pharmaceuticals also affected his views on them, and he notes he ​“wasn’t very interested in any of that kind of stuff.” 

In college, he began experimenting with more plant medicines — he cited CBD and NAD as two such compounds — and that ​“really, really precipitated my curiosity for biological mechanisms and biochemistry and how all of these things worked.”

“I was really, really curious about what was going on in my body during these experiences, how it all worked, understanding all of the details and nuances of how these things are made, where they come from, how they interact,” he added. ​“From there, I started finding these particular compounds that had such distinct benefits with little to no downsides or risk factors whatsoever.” 

Through his own research and experimentation, Angeloff first created a pain balm and vape cartridges, selling them from a website starting around 2018. He then opened a lab and retail space in Wallingford under the name The Remedy on April 20, 2019 and expanded the products he carried to more than just the balm and cartridges, which have been modified ​“many many times over” since then. 

The cafe on State Street opened in September 2022. Angeloff had very specific goals in mind.

“Overall, the genesis for the café and the food came once again not only from my experimentation on myself and doing a lot of fermentation in my apartment, but also because so many people would come to the store in Wallingford and they would have autoimmune issues,” he said. Many customers spoke of chronic inflammatory symptoms as well as trouble sleeping and other pain-related issues. Angeloff began giving them suggestions of where to begin, including eating probiotic and fermented foods, and saw that people would often be overwhelmed by those suggestions. 

“I wanted to have something more available, simple, easy, and fast, where people can get the benefits of these things, like living probiotics foods, without having to put in all the effort,” he said.

Once again, what he offered was based on his own experience and his own needs.

“It’s just things that make me feel good,” he said. ​“It all starts with me, and if … the science behind it is legit and it’s been substantiated by thousands of years of use.…. I’m really looking for those hooks, those things that can give you that visceral immediate acute benefit … where you’re going to notice, and you’re going to come back, and want to feel more of that.”

The café sells a wide variety of Remedy products, including tinctures, balms, and chocolates, some of which are displayed on one of the walls of the café with descriptions of what each is used for. Many of the ingredients used in those products can be added to the beverages the café sells. There are also multiple fermented ingredients used in their food and drinks, as well as multiple therapeutic quality herbal extracts and nutritional supplements.

For example, the turmeric creamsicle smoothie (which this reporter tried and enjoyed) uses four different turmeric extracts, water kefir, yogurt, and raw milk kefir. According to Angeloff, with this type of smoothie ​“you’re never going to be able to get the variety of living bacteria anywhere else all at the same time, let alone at all. Just our yogurts alone include bacteria that you can’t just get in a yogurt at a store.” 

Everything used is organic and sourced ​“in the most intensive way possible,” with all sources vetted ​“to the nth degree,” Angeloff said. ​“We think about what the food was fed, whether it’s a plant or animal, understanding the environment that it’s been evolutionally adapted to and thrives in, and what it’s being raised in now. It takes a lot of work to look into, and also the amount of sources that meet those standards is very slim, and the throughput of those sources is inconsistent. It’s hard to have a turnkey business holding the standards that we keep.”

The café serves meat, but in line with its ideals, it is grass-fed beef. Angeloff describes himself as ​“more of a carnivore than anything.”

“I think people are used to nutrient-devoid things,” he said. ​“Things that are devoid of all nutrients don’t have much flavor and you can do anything with it. Neutral oils, refined bleached flours, refined seed oils — all these things are very detrimental to the body, things I would never use, not in our cookies, nothing, and they’re things you’ll find in everything. You’ll go into the grocery store and look at these supposedly healthy bars, all these things that market themselves as healthy alternatives … and boom, they snuck in some refined seed oils. Refined seed oils go through a fourteen-stage deodorizing, retexturing process. If you can’t get what you want out of it from squeezing it, then it’s not worth it.”

Anyone visiting the Cultured Café can see their food being made right in front of them, especially the fermented foods. In numerous vessels lined up on the counter, a variety of vegetables used in the café’s meals — such as their bowls, sourdough toasts, and even in a fermented veggie salad or flight — are fermenting. On the day of this interview, those vessels included vindaloo curry carrots, onions, and carrot greens. The café also has a cooler full of fermented veggies for sale in take home containers, along with yogurt, butter, milk, and sauces.

Cultured Café is currently open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, except on Mondays, when it closes at 7 p.m. In addition to foods and drinks for there or to go, the café has also been offering a variety of events, from educational and instructional talks to musical performances and social mixers. In February alone, the spot is hosting yoga and a self-message class, as well as talks on cordyceps and ayurveda and a milk kefir fermentation class. Angeloff is hoping to see this aspect of the café expand even more this year, including offering a cocktail bar alternative ​“where people can come who are either looking to take a break from alcohol or who aren’t big drinkers, but they are still looking for a great social scene.” 

“There’s a lot of people that are disenfranchised and don’t want to go out a loud bar,” he said. ​“I think people are looking for something more mellow. I’m really trying to create a place we can cultivate some really interesting conversations and just bring intellectual, cerebral people together and show them some things that I think are very viable alternatives to alcohol.” 

An event was planned for this past weekend featuring nonalcoholic cocktails made from plants including kratom and kava. According to Angeloff, these are natural ways to ​“help deal with stress, help loosen up, and socially lubricate — all the things people generally use alcohol for,” but they won’t disrupt your sleep or make you unable to drive.

The theme throughout all of these events, as well as what the café is serving, is to provide offerings with therapeutic benefits and to generate a supportive community, which is already happening. 

“It’s really all fueled by the incredible people that end up at the café, and just the people that you meet when you’re here,” said Angeloff. ​“That’s the real gem of it all. There are regulars now and my real dream, which is taking place now, is anytime you’re feeling lonely and want to connect to someone, you can come down here and there will be someone to talk to who’s really a great, intentional person who’s trying to improve themselves. The people that have come together and met each other here have just been incredible. It’s really heartening to see.”

Angeloff is pleased with the responses he has gotten thus far and hopes to continue to grow and to serve the neighborhood, New Haven, and beyond. He also has a message for anyone looking to make healthier decisions: he is here to help, but he also wants to encourage you to be your own best caretaker.

“I think this would be a fantastic place [for people] to start and to learn from their own biofeedback and the things their body is telling them — not the thing that anyone else is telling them,” he said. ​“That’s what I’ve let guide me, and that’s what I think they should also let guide them. They can do that by experimenting and trying different things that I have collected. I’m not going to espouse anything that hasn’t worked for me.”

And you can still have a simple cup of coffee or tea as well, and be confident that that is also made with care and concern.

“You can come here and anything you get is going to be far healthier than anywhere,” he said. ​“You can get a regular latte if you want, and that latte is going to have all pasture-raised, grass-fed milk, so you’re already 10 steps ahead of where you were with a latte anywhere else. But I would recommend you get out of your comfort zone and try something crazy for your own benefit, and you’ll notice immediately, if not tomorrow morning.”

The Remedy’s Cultured Cafe is located at 965 State St. More information about their offerings, events, and classes can be found at its website and on its Instagram page. More information about The Remedy’s products can be found at its website. Angeloff can also be found with products from both places at the CitySeed farmer’s market on Saturdays in Wooster Square.