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Mind Your Belly Deli owner Halini Brune inside her first business (Photo courtesy Halini Brune)
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One of the savory options at Mind Your Belly Deli will be sfihas, vegan versions of small Lebanese meat pies. (Photo courtesy Halini Brune)
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Mini polenta cakes from Mind Your Belly Deli (Photo courtesy Halini Brune)
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A lounge area inside Mind Your Belly Deli features couches with tables. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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The interior of Mind Your Belly Deli is airy, bright and open. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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The bagels and "lox" spread at Mind Your Belly Deli (Photo courtesy Halini Brune)
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Cookies from Mind Your Belly Deli (Photo courtesy Halini Brune)
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A seating area inside Mind Your Belly Deli (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Tarts and pie from Mind Your Belly Deli (Photo courtesy Halini Brune)
Halini Brune, 39, grew up in Curitiba, Brazil, a city in the southern part of the country where barbecue was a popular culinary custom and meals were incomplete without an array of carnivorous offerings. At a young age Brune recalls being turned off by meat — she wasn’t a fan of its taste and texture or seeing animals roam on her family’s farm and then end up on her plate.
“Since I was little I had a hard time eating meat,” explains Brune, who moved to the United States in 2014. “My thing is bread.”
And bread there will be, as Brune embarks on her first business venture, a 100 percent vegan bakery and deli, Mind Your Belly Deli, expected to open by mid-January at 201 Towne Center West Blvd., No. 707, in Short Pump.
As a child, Brune says, she’d often watch her mother, Marlene, of Lebanese descent, in the kitchen, intrigued by the methodical kneading and chemistry of cooking and the comfort it brought her. Marlene owned a bakery in the countryside called Que Delicia, known for its cakes and savory pastries.
Little did Brune know she would follow a similar path to her mother's.
“I love the smell of the dough and the process — for me it’s like magic is happening,” says Brune.
So how did Brune transition from the meat-eating Brazilian culture she knew so well to becoming a vegan chef and baker?
The major turning point was upon discovering Challenge 22, a dietary experience that matches participants with a mentor who, over the course of 22 days, provides recipes, tips and guidance toward leading a vegan lifestyle. According to the Challenge 22 website, almost 200,000 people across the world have participated.
“I said to them, ‘I’d love to be vegan, but I hate vegetables. How can I do this?’ ” Brune says. “[My Challenge 22 mentor] started sending me recipes, and I loved it; I started cooking everything.”
Following the challenge, Brune began to notice a lack of vegan options at restaurants and eateries. She started traveling to the National Gourmet Institute — a culinary school in New York focused on a plant-based curriculum and healthy eating — and enrolled in intensive culinary courses on topics ranging from making plant-based cheese to vegan pizza.
“Why do we eat eggs? Why do we drink milk? Why do we eat animal fat? We don’t need it,” says Brune, who found the experience at NGI to be life-changing. “You can make food without those things and make it very well.”
The menu at Mind Your Belly, a blend of sweet and savory options, will change frequently based on customer feedback, and include daily specials along with rotating menu items.
When asked which menu item she favors, Brune, who is using recipes handed down from her mother but with vegan tweaks, responds quickly and like a true carb lover: “The breads, for sure.”
Customers can look forward to beet bread, traditional loaves and popovers. Although the business did not open in time for the holidays, she says her vegan panettone, a traditional Italian dessert that is also popular in Brazil, is the treat she’s most proud of. Other options include fruit tarts, sweet polenta bites, key lime and apple pies, brownies, truffles, and orange and banoffee cakes.
On the savory side, Brune gets in touch with her Lebanese background with the creation of sfihas — open-faced "meat" pies stuffed with vegan versions of ground beef or lamb along with onion and tomatoes.
“It’s something I will make a lot,” Brune says with enthusiasm.
She also has plans to offer a vegan Philly cheese steak, sandwiches and soups. Another specialty diners can expect to see often: a vegan play on bagels and lox. Brune takes carrots on quite a journey — they are salted, baked to form a crust, smoked, then cut into thin slices that resemble salmon. Her sesame and onion bagels are smeared with a house-made vegan cream cheese and then topped with the “lox,” capers and onions.
Brune is currently speaking with the team at UnMoo, the cashew-based vegan cheese made in Richmond, to use their product as a cheese substitute, but also makes her own.
In the future, Brune hopes to offer classes on vegan baking and cooking so people can re-create the recipes at home.
“It’s just a different way to cook, and I would love to share it with people,” says Brune. “I want this to be a place you come and feel good about the things we are eating.”
Mind Your Belly Deli is one of a handful of new vegan eateries, along with Hang Space in Bon Air and NuVegan Café downtown, to pop up in Richmond in recent months. Brune hopes to appeal to all types of eaters and showcase healthy alternatives.
“That’s why I gave the name to the business; I really feel like being mindful,” says Brune. “I’m targeting, of course, the vegans but the nonvegans as well. I think there are a lot of people out there who want to be vegan but can’t, and some people don’t want to be 100 percent vegan, but if they had the chance they would eat a vegan meal or eat vegan twice a week.”
Mind Your Belly Deli will be open every day from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.