College Street Goes ​“B” Natural

Two secret recipes produced this aromatic pan of ​“fir-fir” beckoning to visitors inside the bright confines of downtown’s new ​“farm-to-counter” restaurant.

One was a culinary recipe: Crumbled teff blended with spices created one of several distinctive grains to form a bed for a five-part ​“farm market bowl.”

The other was a business recipe: An entrepreneurial duo combined an eye for evolving with the times to reinvent their operation — and survive in the brutal restaurant business.

Nebyat Shewaye and Gabi Merayo are that duo, life as well as business partners who have been feeding health-conscious people downtown in various spots and under various brandings since 2004.

This week they opened their newest restaurant, B Natural Kitchen & Bar, a wide-open 2,600-foot space tucked amid Claire’s, the Taft, the Shubert, and The College Street Music Hall between Chapel and Crown at 260 College. It’s their first breakfast-through-dinner-and-beyond operation, building on the moves they’ve perfected over a decade and a half.

At the heart of the menu is a ​“farm market bowl” that the kitchen crew assembles in five steps as customers choose among a wide selection of base, protein, and topping choices. The options lean heavily on the organic and the healthful. The resulting bowls can serve carnivores and plant-based partisans alike.

You start by choosing a base of either greens (such as sauteed kale and carrots) or grains, which include trendy health-conscious alternatives to rice like quinoa and farro with mushrooms and cauliflower rice.

Merayo assembled a sample bowl for The Independent’s Vegan Vittler, who began with a base called ​“fir-fir.” That comes from Shewaye’s native Ethiopia. (Merayo hails from Costa Rica. They met while taking business courses at Southern.)

The fir-fir is made from teff flour, which New Haven diners usually encounter in the form of ingera (spongy sourdough used in Eritrean and Ethiopian cooking). Instead of forming a bread, the flour here is shredded and mixed with hot spices.

Step two: A pair of ​“market sides” These vary by the day, depending on what’s fresh and local and available. This day’s options included turmeric cabbage, charred broccoli with lemon, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted sweet potato, roasted beets, and mac and cheese. The Vittler went for the sweet potato and broccoli.

The ​“premium” — aka protein — choices included ​“doro wat” (chicken spiced with berbere and paprika), grilled salmon … and, the Vittler’s choice, vegan meatballs.

Then came the selection of a topping (corn chips won out over almonds) …

… and dressing. ​“B‑Green hot sauce” won over split-pea, lemon-mint, and sweet & hot competitors.

Not only did the finished product look beautiful. It pressed every pleasure button known to modern gastronomy.

The space itself, designed by the Atelier Cho Thompson firm, is beautiful as well. ​“Transparent,” as Shewaye put it — bright, airy, everything out in the open, including the kitchen.

The first-time diner recognizes elements of this feast from flavors and combinations Shewaye and Merayo have developed since launching their original venture, Woodland Coffee & Tea on Orange Street.

That opened in 2004. It featured 100 varieties of teas. And it blended with the downtown focus then of high-quality coffeeshop hangouts. A second outpost opened on Sherman’s Alley in 2007.

Shewaye (pictured) and Merayo added more sandwiches and drinks over the years. (They also began raising three children, now 12 and 10 and 6, in Hamden’s Spring Glen neighborhood.) They picked up on customers’ desire for more healthful options. They crafted signature smoothies (including a to-die-for peanut butter-and-banana concoction), offered lean-meat as well as multiple vegetarian and vegan sandwiches and salads.

In 2016, they added a line of take-home nut-and-dried-fruit snacks sold in the cafe as well as online (including home delivery).

Then came the first grain bowls, which were a hit (at least for this one regular).

All along, said Shewaye, he has sought to ​“stay in business in a natural away,” with a focus on organic and unprocessed and, when possible, local ingredients. ​“The more we go simple, and natural, the more” we can stay.”

Last month they closed down the 950-square-foot Orange Street shop in the Ninth Square in order to launch the expanded new College Street operation. (Belee Araya, pictured above at the kombucha tap, worked at the old shop and has made the move to College Street.)

They tailored the new restaurant to the busy College Street nightlife. They’re staying open to 10 on weeknights, midnight on weekends.

They’ve added East Rock Brewing’s craft beers on tap, along with Wallingford-brewed hard cider and Danbury-brewed kombucha. Starting next week they’re also opening at 9 a.m. to serve breakfasts that customers can order assembled from fruit, organic scrambled eggs, organic granola, organic oatmeal, and toppings.

They’re keeping the B Natural Cafe open a block away in Sherman’s Alley. That will continue as a coffee shop — open during daylight hours, focused on coffee, tea, sandwiches, smoothies.

You can count on new iterations of B Natural in New Haven’s future. For now, dozens of possible variations on the humble yet colorful and sublime ​“farm market bowl” will keep loyal customers busy making choices for years to come.