Aloka Quality of Life Centre

I’m not vegetarian or vegan but I think this place has the best lunch in Brighton. Creative, healthy and colorful food. There is a stamp card so you get your money’s worth if you go often. The ice-​cream is also great (especially if you are on a low-​carb diet).
Also try the chicory, fig and barley soy latte– it tastes better than coffee!

I’d walked past Aloka several times, and always looked in and thought it looked nice, so we decided to try it out. The atmosphere is very open and relaxed, but being newcomers, we were a little confused as to what to do at first. The waitress soon spotted our confusion and came over to tell us we take what we want, then weigh it, and pay for the weight we’d taken. I went up and tried a little of everything. All of it was very wholesome and very tasty. My plate came up to about £8 which I thought was quite pricey as I’d only really half-​filled my plate and could have eaten twice that much if I’d had the money.
I went for a dessert after — an Earl Grey chocolate mousse, one of the cheaper desserts, which at first looked quite small and like I could devour it in a matter of seconds. In reality, it was very dense and rich, and despite the delicious first few mouthfuls, I felt a bit sick by the end.
In summary, the savoury food is delicious and should be tried, but not by me for a while as my funds don’t quite reach what my appetite demands in that place.

I have heard that people think the food in the café is expensive however when you realise the chefs at Aloka only source the finest organic/​biodynamic ingredients, you can easily forgive these prices — even the salt is Himalayan Pink Rock Salt!
Five us visited the restaurant on the first floor and had such an incredible evening.
The Waitress was very helpful and explained to us how raw food is ‘cooked’ and we weren’t disappointed, in fact we got the chef out at the end of the evening to explain more about how he got the Corn Cakes so crispy as if they were fried but I won’t spill the secret here.
All very clever and one final lasting memory was how FULL we were from so LITTLE. The Chef claims this is because the food is so nutritionally dense.
Certainly we all felt very alive/​buzzy the next day.
Simply an extraordinary culinary experience in a lovely setting, for the restaurant is individual. Some great design here.
Beats Terre a Terre in my books.

As a carnivore, Aloka wouldn’t immediately make it to the top of my list of places to visit. But I was recently invited to try out the facial, and arrived earlier to enjoy the buffet lunch.
I thought I’d struggle with the vegetarian, vegan and raw food, but it was surprisingly tasty. I filled up on broccoli with… well, I’m not quite sure, but it certainly pleased my tastebuds. The roast potatoes were delicious, the bread and dipping oils were fresh and the range of drinks was really good.
You weigh your food then pay, so it’s great if you want something healthy on the go. It’s not cheap, but then how many places can you find that offer takeaway vegan food?
The facial itself was lovely, a nice mixture of colour therapy, hydrating treatments and some form of aura cleansing that went slightly over my head.
It must have worked though, as I walked out of the spa in a relaxed trance.
If you’re a fan of treatments that relax both your body and your mind, then Aloka might be just the place.

This is one of my favorite spots in Brighton.
They have a lunch and dinner buffet. Its not the biggest amount of food, but fantastic variety, healthy food, and all labeled raw, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-​free, etc.
They have wonderful cakes and chocolate treats. They serve alcohol and some nice beers too.
If your interested in eating raw, during the week in the evenings they do a full raw menu upstairs. Awesome.
And… check out the crystal room downstairs, or stay for a massage or some yoga classes. All contained in one building.

Aloka is a ‘quality of life centre’ on East Street in Brighton. It houses a veggie/​vegan/​raw food café and restaurant, a yoga studio, shop and day spa where you can have various treatments such as massage. The main «therapy» (and I use those inverted commas meaningfully) on offer at Aloka however is the ‘Aura-​Soma technique’. Let me give you an explanation in their own words. «Aloka means ‘inner light’, Aura means ‘light’ and Soma ‘body’. A visit to Aloka energises our inner light and nurtures our ‘light body.’» Well I hope that’s clear enough. It’s not? Oh, er, ok, well let me tell you a bit about what an Aura Soma consultation comprises of, again in their own words. «By choosing just four of the dual coloured Aura-​Soma bottles your qualified practitioner will be able to tell you about your life’s path, your personality, what drives you, what’s holding you back, what gifts and talents you have and how to utilise these to transform situations in your life and move forward with confidence. Many bottles are related to specific circumstances in your life and using a chosen bottle directly on the body can bring about resolution, change and restore balance and harmony ‘You are the colours you choose and these reflect your being’s needs.’»
Still a bit hazy? Basically they have a load of bottle of differently coloured oils, you choose some that you feel ‘drawn to’ and using these colours your colour therapist will interpret your life path and use them on you (not sure what this entails — holding them against you perhaps) to «heal» you and realign your energies and inner light or whatever. I’m sure it’s very enlightening. It will certainly enlighten your wallet — of £75 for the recommended 90 minute treatment. I don’t like being too cynical because people with a strong capacity for self-​delusion may well feel they benefit from the opportunity to, I dunno, shun 75 of their material pounds to gain spiritual harmony or something, so I will just talk about the café now instead.
The food is certainly all veggie, and a lot of it is vegan and raw. I had a raw mocha cupcake which was ok. I’ve had some takeaway lunch from there before, it’s quite tasty in a worthy kind of way, but it is pretty expensive.

Aloka is a strange beast, somewhere between restaurant, shop and beauty spa. As weird as that sounds is how it feels to be in there. If eating, people are constantly trying to look at the stuff on the shelves above your heads, if shopping you have to deal with such people… and, not being a massive fan of beauty treatments, I haven’t really gone in for that either. While the food is nice, if very pricey, the whole shop is a mess.
In terms of a wellness shop, Aloka doesn’t really offer much. A couple of oils and other bits and pieces, but nothing really stand-​out or special. Also, it is exceptionally awkward, wanting to smell an oil or test a sample, when everyone else around you is tucking into grub. A truly bizarre set-​up.
In terms of the food, Aloka does offer some very nice veggie stuff, all well made, if a pale imitation of the nearby Terre a Terre. I think it’s supposed to be more of a casual-​lunch time menu, but combined with the awkwardness of the shoppers meandering around, the whole thing just feels confused and strange. Add on top of that the prices are a little prohibitive for a casual lunch, and the whole thing falls apart.
That isn’t to say that the food isn’t well-​made, but it just seems quite meager for the price. The service is also a peculiar mess-​up: everyone seems to try to do everything, in terms of shop and restaurant, appearing just as confused as the customers.
There isn’t much going for Aloka, unfortunately, as it seems to be the biggest mess imaginable. Word from some friends is that he health treatments are very comprehensive and very well done, so maybe check those out, but avoid the bizarre restaurant/​shop: it doesn’t know what it is.

Aloka is a vegetarian restaurant/​café which has vegan and raw food options too. It also consists of a day spa, yoga studio and shop. I have only visited for the food which I have to say is delicious. They sell their food by weight depending on how much you put on your plate. There is a buffet with a varied selection of freshly made food to choose from such as pasta, curry, stir-​fry, tartlets, pastry dishes, a great selection of salads and lots more. It’s nice to have a mix of different things to eat on your plate. The only downside is that it’s quite expensive but once you taste the food you realise it’s worth the price. A nice relaxing place if you’re looking for something refreshing.

Aloka claims to be a combination spa-​shop-​restaurant. However, when I went in yesterday to check out the selection of ‘wellbeing’ items for sale, I found the term ‘shop’ to be a bit misleading. There were a few shelves of oils along the side wall, but to get a closer look at them, I would have been standing awkwardly close to a table of women having lunch. Indeed, it felt as though I were standing in the middle of a restaurant the whole time.
At the unstaffed counter (perhaps that was a part of the problem) I browsed through pamphlets of the lunch and dinner menus and listing of therapeutic treatments offered. Both looked intriguing but pricey, and I slipped the pamphlets into my bag for future perusal: The four-​course Christmas meal sounded especially delicious. I then ducked back out into the street to avoid further… awkwardness.