Three London spot for a great vegan meal: From French patisserie to Italian pizza - and a Sunday roast

It really feels like London has got some serious vegan mojo at the moment. There are so many new places I want to go and visit that I've lost track (but you can bet that the capital's first totally vegan fish and chip shop is right at the top of my list though!) Here's a few I've been loving recently.

The first is the Amersham Arms in New Cross. If you live in south London and you need a good vegan Sunday roast, get yourself down there -- you'll be in for a feed of the highest order. Sunday roasts are one of those classic meals that so many people are familiar with, and often it's as a family meal. You all get together and sit down for a big old meal at lunchtime, and then you spend the rest of the afternoon digesting and snoozing. When I was kid, it was a weekly occurrence. Things were always at their quietest on a Sunday afternoon -- we'd all have a full Sunday roast, then watch rubbish on the TV (the only time when I could sit and watch Formula One races for hours) or slope off and read a book.

Which is all a long winded way of saying I love Sunday roasts. Sad thing is, I never get to cook roasts at home any more -- they take a good while to make properly, and there's never enough of a gap between revision, dissertations, and life to spend hours cooking dinner. So, the only way I get a Sunday roast these days is if someone else makes it for me. Luckily, the Amersham Arms is there to fill the void in my Sunday -- and my stomach!

The Sunday menu at the pub is all vegan -- normally four or five different mains and a dessert if you need one. I pretty much always choose the Wellington because I believe there are few things in life that can't be made better by wrapping them in pastry. The Wellington filling is gorgeous, but with a pastry coat? It's heaven. And, like any good roast, the Amersham Arms does a cracking variety of sides -- carrots, parsnips, roast potatoes, even a vegan Yorkshire pudding. And a boatload of gravy, because a roast is not a roast without enough gravy to swim in.

Next Sunday, get yourself a paper, and get yourself down the Amersham Arms. It's what Sunday was made for.


A few weeks back, we went to Vegtoberfest. I'm not sure who put it together, but I think the local student prom committee could have done a better job. There was nothing really Oktoberfest-y about it, apart from the month. A handful of the staff were dressed in costumes that look like they cost £2.99 and were probably a fire risk of such proportions it would terrify 1970s polyester. They weren't even vegan -- the hats had feathers in! There were all of two vegan beers on tap, eye watering queues for the couple of vegan food sellers, and nowhere to sit. There was all the atmosphere of a library. I kept thinking whoever was behind it wasn't vegan, because vegans are kind and passionate folk -- they take pride in vegan events. This felt like someone trying to make a quick buck off the back of the growth of veganism. Ugh.

We had a beer, cut our losses, and left. In need of cheering up, we went to Purezza. Purezza is an all vegan joint, and they know how to make great pizza, and how to make vegans happy. So good are they at making vegan pizza, they recently won the National Pizza Awards, ahead of all the omni competition. These guys know their pizza.

I know it's wrong, but every time I go to Purezza, I order the lasagne. It's reeeeaaaaallly good. But visiting just after the National Pizza Awards, I finally let them persuade me to order a pizza -- I chose the special when I was there.

Appropriately for a pizza called the Fall, I couldn't resist its temptations. Instead of the customary tomato base, the Fall had a white base of truffled mozzarella. There was smoked tofu, yellow tomatoes, and mounds of cashew cream. I valiantly tried to eat the whole thing, but I failed at the last couple of slices. Happily, they'll box up the leftovers. Even more happily, they do some good desserts -- if you have room, getting the brownie is never a bad idea.


And from two old favourites to a new discovery. Cafe Forty One is a new vegan patisserie in La Suite West, a hotel a stone's throw from Hyde Park.

With the weather turning more autumnal, me and Mr Flicking the Vs took a stroll around the park to kick the leaves and revel in the change in seasons. Suitably glutted on autumn vibes, we went down to see if a vegan French patisserie was as good as it sounds.

Sadly, we got a table in the dark interior so my snaps of our food were pretty poor -- unlike the food, which was distinctly lovely.

Here's the chocolate and praliné mille feuille:


And here's the poire belle-Helène:



While both were on the spendy side for what you'd normally pay for pudding, but really, for your £5 or £7 you get to feel a little bit posh with your dainty dessert. You may not feel stuffed, but you won't feel robbed. There's not enough vegan patisserie in the world, so anything that changes that situation is good with me. 

I loved the dainty artistry of both dishes, but they didn't stay pretty for long: we snapped that little chocolate basket, destroyed the arrangement of biscuit and candied pecan, and happily broke the mille feuille into a thousand pieces. Then we made approving noises while we ate, passing the chocolate sauce back and forth between it like the jug carried the elixir of eternal youth. Not a drop was wasted.

So, there you have it -- the three places I've been loving recently. All vegan, all delicious. Maybe those new vegan joints will have to wait: I'm looking forward to going back to all three before too long.


Comments

  1. love that roast and that pizza (well I mean virtually but if I could chomp in I would) but am not a huge patisserie fan. And I am glad you were able to laugh at the vegoberfest because I was laughing right along with you even though it sounds disappointing. There is no excuse for sad vegan events these days with so much good stuff out there.

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  2. Always happy to see more vegan food available especially when it looks like that! What I wouldn't give to try a good vegan Sunday roast just once... :-)

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