To celebrate Veganuary, Resy, the popular restaurant booking platform, has curated a list of ten vegan-friendly restaurants worth a visit throughout the month – whether you’re already a full-time vegan, or someone who simply enjoys a plant-based dish.
Once viewed as a niche for non-meat eaters, Resy’s 2023 Trend Report anticipates a rise in both the number, and popularity of vegetarian restaurants in 2023. The success of Middle Eastern restaurant Bubala is a great example of this, having opened their second site this summer in Soho, alongside popular plant-based residencies such as Tendril from chef Rishim Sachdeva.
In addition, Resy predicts we will see a shift in menu item mix, with a greater focus on plant-based dishes. This goes for all cuisines, with restaurants such as Acme Fire Cult making vegetables the star of the show for their open fire cooking and West African restaurant Tatale launching with a predominantly vegetarian menu.
Bubala takes its inspiration from across the Middle East, with a big focus on the Israeli style of playfulness and inventiveness underpinned by long-standing tradition. The menu also takes its cue from the rich cultures of Turkey, Lebanon and Morocco. Purely vegetarian, with many vegan dishes on offer, Bubala adopts a no substitutes attitude, shunning the synthetic and processed and instead championing the best and most exciting veg they can get their hands on.
Specialty dish: Fried aubergine, zhoug and date syrup
Lucky & Joy (Clapton)
Many of the most loved dishes at London’s best Chinese restaurants happen to be vegetarian or vegan, and this hip Clapton restaurant leans into that, with a mostly vegan and vegetarian menu perfect for sharing.
Specialty dish: Typhoon shelter cauliflower
The Swing (West Hampstead)
The Swing is a vegetarian neighbourhood restaurant and café in the heart of West Hampstead. Mediterranean and Japanese ingredients are excitingly played with throughout this menu. Dishes are colourful, contrasting, and honest: served centre of the table, perfect for sharing.
Specialty dish: Miso mushroom arancini
Tendril (Soho)
Some of the best vegan and vegetarian cooking in London comes right from the capable hands of chef Rishim Sachdeva. Here, a vegan-centric menu of sharing plates pulls no punches, with plates like a winter squash tostada or a heritage beetroot ‘bao’ with lemongrass XO highlighting outstanding produce.
Specialty dish: Crispy beetroot bao
Banh Banh Brixton (Brixton)
Run by the Nguyen brothers and sisters, this stylish family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Brixton offers modern takes on classic dishes. Notably, much of the menu is vegan or vegetarian, with highlights including delicate banh khot mini-pancakes, bowls of vegan noodle soup and thick noodles tossed with herbs and tofu.
Specialty dish: Bank khot pancakes (vgo)
SpiceBox Walthamstow (Walthamstow)
The focus at Grace Regan’s popular restaurant is vegan Indian cooking, using classic techniques and ingredients to give dishes like a delicious mushroom keema or jackfruit jalfrezi an E17 twist. Serving modern, fresh spins on curry house classics.
Specialty dish: Aubergine vindaloo
Club Mexicana (Soho)
Club Mexicana in Soho is known predominantly for three things — tacos, an all-vegan menu, and delivering one of the most fun nights around. Tofu fish tacos, satisfying burritos, loaded vegan nachos, and heady cocktails are perfect for a group hang, while a bumping soundtrack keeps the room moving.
Specialty dish: Fried chick’n taco
Mr Bao Peckham (Peckham)
One of South London’s most popular restaurants, this Taiwanese gua bao specialist in Peckham (and its sibling, Daddy Bao) are offering a short-but-sweet menu of steamed buns (with a variety of fillings), dumplings, sides, and curries. An outstanding selection of pure plant-based small plates, snacks, and mains makes it ideal for new and seasoned vegetarians and vegans alike.
Specialty dish: Tofu bao
Tatale (Southwark)
One of the year’s most anticipated restaurants has arrived, bringing with it slick pan-African cooking, an infectiously upbeat dining room, and a side of conscious dining. Owner Akwasi Brenya-Mensa has Ghanaian roots, but here he showcases the food of the African diaspora with predominantly plant-based dishes like ackee croquettes and a comforting groundnut soup with omo tuo (mashed rice dumpling).
Speciality dish: Omo Tuo (Mashed Rice) & Nkatekwnan (Groundnut Soup)
Acme Fire Cult (Dalston)
Acme Fire Cult is a live-fire concept from chefs Andrew Clarke & Daniel Watkins. Both have established themselves as premier live fire chefs, with an emphasis on vegetable cookery – almost all of the restaurant’s small plates and snacks menu, for example, is vegan, with dishes like coal roast beets with dill and tender celeriac with vegan XO offering thrilling propositions.
Specialty dish: Beefsteak mushroom ‘carpaccio’ with mushroom-kelp XO sauce
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