Posts by Joe

La Stella Nera Berlin

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I’m way behind on my list of new vegan places in Berlin, so I’ll start with the new collectively-run Italian restaurant, La Stella Nera.

That it’s collectively run is positive as it means that the people working there share in the ownership, the work and the income, too. After a scandal in Berlin involving accusations of shoddy worker treatment at another vegan place, it’s heartening to see somewhere like this.

But what of the food, I’m sure you’re asking! Well, perhaps the clearest indication of the quality is the fact that we couldn’t get in the first two times we went – it was just that busy. Now I’ve learned to phone ahead and reserve, especially on a weekend.

And there’s a reason it’s quickly become such a popular restaurant: the food is high quality. It’s all freshly made and it shows. The pizzas are cooked in a traditional wood-fired pizza oven (sit opposite the till and you can see inside as the pizzas are cooked) and there are also superb pasta dishes – again, the pasta is made on the premises.

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There are two types of pizza offered – ‘blanco’ and ‘rosso’, Italian for white and red. I’m not a huge fan of the blanco pizzas, which come without tomato sauce. The toppings are still nice, but I need that tomato on there! Most of the pizzas have no cheese either, but there are a few on the menu which have cheese if you need it.

The pizza bases are light and fluffy, and baked to perfection. Drizzle with some oil and they’re excellent on their own. There are no wacky toppings or stuffed crust. The menu features traditional pizza with good-quality ingredients.

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The pasta pictured here was truly excellent, by the way – I can’t remember the name of it (my Italian isn’t as good as my German), it was basically pasta with some posh mushrooms, yet despite the simplicity of the dish, it was sublime. We’re planning on going back to have another one.

And if you still have room after all that, there’s a range of desserts including tiramisu and affogato. I’m not normally a fan of coffee in desserts, but both of these rocked my fairtrade, sweatshop-free socks off.

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Despite the high-quality of the food, the place is down-to-earth and easy going – it’s not somewhere you have to dress up for!

So if you’re coming to Berlin, that’s yet another place on your must-visit list. Just remember to phone ahead on a weekend.

Visit La Stella Nera online.

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Vegan in Malmö Sweden

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When I was in Copenhagen, I also took a day trip to Malmö, over the sea in Sweden. Some people make out like Malmö and Copenhagen are nuzzled together, but it will take about an hour to get from central Copenhagen to central Malmö, realistically.

However, if you do make the trip (take your passport, Schengen is no longer here) you’ll be rewarded with some excellent vegan food at Kao’s.

The café was a little hard to find – from the street it looked like the place is closed down (I’m not sure if they were refurbishing it). However, signs directed us through the gate at the side and into the rear courtyard where we found a beautiful, peaceful oasis.

In addition to a buffet, there are three daily specials – one soup, one fake meat, and one vegetable dish, plus a range of sweet treats to satisfy any tastebuds.

We had seitan sausage with potato salad (packed with dill, one of my favourites), and a sweet potato gratin with tofu and curry-roasted vegetables, which came with some amazingly creamy garlic mayonnaise. Both dishes were delicious, though they may not look particularly exciting on my photos! Meals include a trip to the salad bar, plus a tea or filter coffee too.

There was also a big selection of sweet stuff. After much deliberation we settled on a cinnamon swirl, plus a slice of chocolate cake with a thick caramel layer in the middle – gooey and delicious.

4 Kao%27s vegan Malmö - cinnamon swirl and chocolate-caramel cake 3 Kao%27s vegan Malmö – sweet potato gratin 2 Kao%27s vegan Malmö - seitan sausage and dill potato salad 1 Kao%27s vegan Malmö - courtyard

We both thought Kao’s was excellent, a perfect spot for some lunch. There’s also a branch of the vegan supermarket Astrid Och Aporna very close by, so you can stock up on goodies for your travels.

Later, after wandering around the city, we went to the clearly-named Vegan Bar. I quite like that it’s so proud of its credentials – and it was packed, too!

They specialise in burgers, and they have a build-your-own system in place. First you choose your burger style – soya mince, chickpea, or portobello – then you choose your type of bread, then finally your toppings.

We chose a mushy-mushy chickpea burger with sourdough bun. The mushy-mushy includes lots of mushrooms and a slice of vegan cheese. It came with chunky fries and was pretty big and very tasty!

8 Vegan Bar Malmö - burger close-up 7 Vegan Bar Malmö - burger and fries 6 Vegan Bar Malmö - busy seating 5 Vegan Bar Malmö - window sign

The only odd note came after ordering, when the friendly member of staff told us that we should have been charged extra for sharing (we weren’t hungry enough to each tackle a burger and fries). This is a bit weird for a bar. I can understand why a restaurant might do this, but for a place where you order your food at the bar, and where not everyone is eating anyway, it seems a bit off.

But the food was great, and the atmosphere was pretty cool, too. It’s not in the centre of the city, but off to the south, close to Triangeln station where the Copenhagen train stops, which makes it ideal for starting or ending your day in Malmö.

Which is what we did, and thus ended our day in Malmö…

…well, almost. On the way to the station we passed an ICA supermarket and decided to drop in. To our surprise we discovered a huge corner dedicated to vegan products! They even had flapjacks, which funnily enough aren’t easy to get over here. Good to see such prominent vegan marketing, and useful to know too.

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Copenhagen 2016

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You know, I’ve got no excuse to go on holiday to Copenhagen again. There are so many new vegan places in Berlin that I’ve failed to tell you about (though that will soon be rectified, I promise!), yet here I am trotting off to Denmark again.

Anyway, the good news is that since my last visit a year ago, Copenhagen’s vegan selection has improved considerably. In addition to seeing more vegan options in non-vegan places, there are a few new all-vegan restaurants too (and they’re not of the faddy health food variety that dominated previously). Here’s the low-down on two of them.

I think our favourite new place was Souls. Located on a quiet but pretty square in the residential area of Østerbro, Souls is a real step up for vegan fare in Denmark.

We had two sandwiches, and they were not only huge but incredibly tasty too. Photographed here you can see a “Soulful BBQ” which includes grilled mushrooms and tofu, and the Kidney Bean which includes something like Mexican-style refried beans and guacamole, among other ingredients. One sandwich (or “sanger” in their Australian parlance) is plenty of food for one person, but you can order some sweet potato fries now, if you have room.

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They also have a (US-style) pancake brunch, which we never made it to, much to our regret!

We also visited Café N which has a wide range of food available. They have some tasty croissants (the best vegan croissants I’ve had, maybe) and enjoyable sandwiches and sides, as well as full-plate meals (and the portions are generous here, too). You can see a big sandwich crammed full of mushrooms and tofu, with some chunky fries and home-made mayonnaise dip artfully blurred in the background.

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My only complaint about Café N is that they stop taking orders at 9pm, but their website doesn’t mention this (just says they close at 10pm). Come on guys, it’s easy to put that information on there! The staff were very friendly and directed us to another restaurant that had some so-so vegan options, but it was still disappointing, especially as we could have got there earlier if we’d known.

Anyway, those are my latest recommendations for Copenhagen. I hope the city continues to expand for vegans… maybe one day it will catch up to Berlin!

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New vegan donut café

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Just when you thought that Berlin just couldn’t get any better for vegan food, along comes another place to make you drool. And this one is a corker!

Brammibal’s have been selling incredible vegan doughnuts at fairs and through other vegan cafés for about a year now, but finally they’ve achieved their goal of opening a café all of their own. And I’m pleased to say it’s excellent. The café is spacious and relaxing, a great place to spend an hour or so. It feels like it’s a piece of New York City transported across the Atlantic, I’m not quite sure why but that’s the feeling I get (in a good way!).

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The headline product is the doughnuts, of course. A wide range of sticky, sweet confections which are well worth travelling for. But it’s not all about the sugar – even though it’s not promoted much, they also have excellent coffee and sandwiches. We had one with grilled BBQ tempeh and portobello mushroom, and another with cashew cheese and smoked “lox”, made from thinly-sliced carrot. (Lox isn’t a word I’d ever heard in Britain, but I recently learned that it’s used in North America to describe smoked salmon. And it surely comes from the German word “lachs”.) They were both magnificent.

You can find out more about Brammibal’s online.

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Fancy vegan restaurant in Berlin

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It’s not often that I go to a posh restaurant, being the scruffy hippy that I am. But when my mum visited Berlin in November, we took the opportunity to visit what might be Berlin’s finest vegan restaurant: Lucky Leek.

It’s to my shame that we’d not been before, as it’s only ten minutes walk from where we live and has almost exclusively enthusiastic reviews on Happy Cow. Yet somehow the occasion hadn’t arisen to pay the higher prices that such a classy joint demands. But in November we’d just returned from a visit to London, so all of a sudden the prices didn’t seem so high any more. (Everything in Berlin seems very cheap after a visit to London – in fact, I’m sure most Londoners who go to posh places would consider Lucky Leek a bargain.)

Our delay in visiting Lucky Leek is matched only by my delay in writing about it. My excuse is that I’ve been searching for the superlatives these past five months. Lucky Leek really is that good.

I can’t remember exactly what we ordered, but I do remember that it was all exquisitely presented and utterly delicious. We were brought a complimentary mini starter while we waited for the starter we’d ordered (creamy oyster mushroom soup, which arrived with some crispy deep-fried oyster mushrooms on the side), which was very nice of them.

One of my worries about posh places is that the portions will be tiny, but I’d say that’s not the case at Lucky Leek. The portions weren’t enormous but nor were they small – unlike some other classy restaurants I’ve been to – and we left feeling well fed. And again, everything was carefully presented.

The dessert stands out in my mind for some reason, especially that delicately decorated chocolate you can see in the photo. Some of the flavour combinations seemed odd when reading the menu, but the range of flavours worked very well together.

Our waiter was very friendly, and we were made to feel comfortable and welcome. The menu can seem a bit complex (it’s in English as well as German though, so don’t worry!) as it’s laid out like there are set menus – but we just chose what we wanted from each one, which was no problem.

So if you’re in Berlin and fancy splashing out on a really fancy meal, then put Lucky Leek on your list.

1 Lucky Leek Berlin amuse bouche 2 Lucky Leek Berlin starter mushroom soup 3 Lucky Leek main course 4 Lucky Leek Berlin main course 5 Lucky Leek Berlin dessert 6 Lucky Leek Berlin dessert

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Police called in to vegan restaurant opening

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I absolutely LOVE this guest post from Joe. Nothing says the ‘rise of veganism’ quite like police having to be called in to calm crowds at a vegan restaurant opening!

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PR + FREE FOOD = PANDEMONIUM

After lots of promotion and press, plus an offer of free food on their opening night, the people behind new Berlin vegan burger joint Dandy Diner were always going to have their hands full. Though whether they expected to be so inundated that the police had to attend in order to manage the crowds, I don’t know.

Either way, it’s made the headlines today.

The Berliner Zeitung says: “Too full! Police break up opening party at the ‘Dandy Diner’. Pushing, shoving, and a long queue outside … by 10pm (just two hours after opening) they were already out of sauce. The police had to break up the party, as too many people were outside blocking the street.”

RBB-Berlin says: “Police had to curb the onslaught at Vegan snack bar. Around 300 people were inside, hoping to get hold of some food without meat or other animal ingredients. Shortly after 9pm there were so many people outside, that officers intervened, after consulting with the owners of the snack bar. Those outside were asked to leave.”

N-TV says: “Police disperse vegan opening party. When two fashion bloggers opened their first vegan snack bar, the people of Berlin weren’t slow to arrive. Hundreds of people appeared at the opening party, and when the rush became too large, police had to intervene”

Craziness at @dandydiner #BERLIN

A photo posted by becca (@beccacrawford) on

You can follow Dandy Diner over on Instagram.

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More vegan food in Amsterdam

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My Amsterdam odyssey continues, bringing us to the charming Vegabond. Very centrally located, the café is not far from the popular Anne Frank museum.

We went here for a late breakfast one afternoon and were pleased to find a tofu scramble on the menu (nearly always a good option!) which came with delicious slices of avocado and spinach leaves on top. The ‘El Jefe’ hot sauces on the table livened things up nicely.

Vegabond isn’t just a café. It’s also got a decent selection of vegan groceries, including chilled and frozen foods and a wide range of sweets (we stocked up on all the new Nakd flavours!).

If you want more information about Vegabond, visit their website.

Vegabond-Amsterdam-grocery-selection Vegabond-Amsterdam-info-board Vegabond-Amsterdam-interior-looking-outside Vegabond-Amsterdam-shop-front Vegabond-Amsterdam-tofu-scramble

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Vegan café in Amsterdam

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One place that everyone seems to mention whenever I write about Amsterdam is Koffie ende Koeck and with very good reason!

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It’s a lovely café, with friendly staff serving coffee and tea, some tasty savouries, and excellent cakes, all beautifully presented. We’ve been twice now, but I can’t seem to find any photos of the first time, and this last time I was so busy digging into this delicious orange drizzle cake that I forgot to take more photos!

But that’s all probably a good sign, right? Koffie ende Koeck should definitely be on your list of vegan places to visit while in Amsterdam.

Also, it’s one of the few places that you’ll find Fentimans soft drinks, if that’s important to you (it’s nice have the occasional Dandelion and Burdock, it’s hard to find on the continent!).

Click here to visit the Koffie ende Koeck website.

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Seaweed burger in Netherlands

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joe panel

As we’re on our Dutch odyssey, let’s take a quick break from bustling Amsterdam and swing by Dordrecht, a nice little town that we visited partly (ahem, mainly) due to the presence of a new vegan café called Daantje there that we wanted to try.

And we were so glad we did! Dordrecht is a very pretty town, and Daantje was a lovely café, bright and cheerful, on a postcard-perfect old Dutch street.

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So the ambience was spot-on, you’ll be glad to hear the food was excellent too. I had a “Dutch Weed Burger” (which may be named provocatively but is just a play on words, it’s named after the seaweed it contains) which had been recommended to me by almost every Dutch person I spoke to (or so it seemed). It was huge and delicious!

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Jess had a brie, walnut and maple syrup wrap, which was also great. The vegan brie is apparently made on the premises, and was really creamy and full of flavour. Had we been served this in a non-vegan place, I’d have been suspicious of dairy infiltration! But the friendly owner is definitely 100% vegan.

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So should you fancy visiting the Netherlands but having a break from Amsterdam, then I can recommend a day in Dordrecht, including a visit to Daantje.

Amsterdam

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joe panel

Just a couple of years ago, Amsterdam was pretty poor for vegan stuff. I was very surprised to discover this as Amsterdam has a reputation as being counter-cultural, alternative and free-thinking, yet there was a lack of vegan restaurants (and the vegetarian ones were pretty poor, too).

Conversely, according to my Dutch friends, the Hague has a reputation as being a boring, buttoned-up city of government workers and lawyers – yet the vegan options there were far better than in Amsterdam.

But happily, times have changed and Amsterdam now has a decent selection of vegan places, many of which have opened in the last couple of years. So let’s have a quick run around a few of them during my next few blog posts, shall we?

First, let’s visit what might be my favourite new Amsterdam eatery of our recent trip – DopHert. We’d heard good things about DopHert, so were eager to try out their menu, which had lots of tasty items on it.

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