Greenhouse is the Gilma family’s second venue in Graz, opened in 2015 in the Altstadtpassage in the Innere Stadt, near the Hauptplatz. The family has run the Ginko restaurant since 1996, and Albin Gilma opened a small vegetarian restaurant in 1976. Greenhouse is fully vegan. The name is literal: the room is meant to recall a greenhouse, with botanical elements set in Scandinavian design by the Norwegian designer Vigdis Apeland Bergh, who also reworked the Ginko.

Coffee is “das Herzstück unseres Ladens”. The espresso is Cignobianco, Gardelli’s everyday blend of two arabica lots, one from Brazil and a washed lot from Peru, roasted in Forlì, Italy, and delivered directly to the café. Filter coffee is brewed by hand on the V60 or the Kalita, from Gardelli coffees roasted lighter than the espresso blend; the baristas change the origins and methods regularly. Esmee and Berit Gilma put it as a love of coffee and of responsible enjoyment, which for them includes a fair deal for the environment and the producers.

The kitchen makes bagels, bowls and salads every day with seasonal produce, house sauces and dressings, plus a daily lunch menu and smoothies from organic ingredients. The vegan bakery mills organic spelt flour fresh each day, the only bakery in Graz to do so by its own account, and uses oat, maize and buckwheat flours for its gluten-free bakes. The Bananenschnitte is the classic; there are raw cakes too, and whole cakes can be ordered for collection at the Ginko or the Greenhouse. Ingredients are natural and, where possible, organic, regional and seasonal, with no preservatives or artificial additives. The coffee is roasted by Gardelli in Forlì.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Ginko Greenhouse, photo Lupi Spuma