London vegan news, reviews & events
I visited vegan Italian restaurant FED by Water for the first time today in over six months and I’m delighted to report back that the food is still as incredible as ever.
Josh and I were blown away the pizza and bread basket. The portions are mammoth and we really struggled to fit it all in… but we did, of course!
It was also a lovely surprise to see the pizza named after me still on the menu.
Follow FED by Water on Instagram and then check out photos from my experience earlier today.
Huge announcement for attendees of London Vegan Beer Fest on July 15, 2017.
Say hello to you brewery line up. It is mammoth.
Moor Beer Co – Bristol’s finest crash landing at our event!
Brass Castle Brewery – the one and only superstar brewery coming out of Yorkshire
Clarkshaws Brewing – get a taste of south London
Three Hills Brewing – small batch brewing out of Northamptonshire
40FT Brewery – getting local with these brewers from Dalston doing a tap takeover in the restaurant
Beerblefish Brewing – north London beer producers with taste big enough for the entire city
Twisted Barrel Ale – handcrafted in the heart of Coventry
Moncada Brewery – west London producers who are seasoned LVBF participants
BumbleBee Cider – vegans without cider is not right so this South Oxfordshire producer is coming on board
Full drinks list to be published in the coming days.
Also, we are not just about beer and cider. We pay as much attention to what you are eating. Look at this fabulous vegan food selection.
Lazy Boy Kitchen – Mac n cheese with bacon bits | chilli cheese fries | mac n cheese spring rolls
Club Mexicana – BBQ pulled jackfruit burritos (GF option) | tofish tacos (GF option) | deep fried cheeze fries
Arancini Brothers – One Tasty Vegan burger | risotto balls (GF)
Young Vegans – Seitan & ale pie | Sweet potato pie (GF) | Curry pie | All day breakfast pie | Peanut butter mud pie brownie (GF)
Battered – Vegan fish | Battered Pie | Battered sausage | Mushy peas | Pickled onion | Pickled gherkins | Tartare sauce
Peanut Butter Bakery – Fried donuts
Vegan Delice – Tray bakes | Cupcakes
Autumn Yard – Sit down restaurant service | Wine bar | Cocktails
This is seriously the vegan party of the year with the drink and food menus to match.
London Vegan Beer Fest has three massive spaces to explore:
Every single item served on the day is vegan. OF COURSE.
You can buy a cheap early bird ticket now. We have already sold a whole bunch but if you are quick, you can get yours for just £5 plus a small booking fee. Once these are gone, second release tickets are £7 plus fee. If we have any tickets remaining on the day, they will be £9 on the gate.
Don’t hate me if you leave it to the last minute and the event sells out. We do have a capacity and we will likely reach it.
If you use Facebook, take the time to RSVP to the event page and use the invite button to alert your friends and enemies. A cheeky little share on your timeline would also be greatly appreciated.
You can follow Vegan Beer Fest UK accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay updated.
See you at London Vegan Beer Fest!
Extra note: tickets are also selling strongly for the first ever Sheffield Vegan Beer Fest on July 29, 2017. RSVP here and book tickets.
Even though I first reported the opening of vegan fried chicken shop Temple of Hackney back at the beginning of the year, I only got to eat with the business for the first time a few days ago.
This isn’t so much a review as it is a love letter.
Temple of Hackney is the food business of my dreams. What they are doing is the definition of groundbreaking and there is nobody on the planet doing what they do to this level.
The menu is outstanding and irresistible.
Crispy chips. Juicy seitan with crunchy coating. Gravy pots. Vegan chicken poppers. Burgers.
Every single item is world class and Temple of Hackney is one of the finest vegan food outlets on the planet. No debate.
Follow them on Instagram and eat with them as soon and as often as you can.
One of the biggest and most deserved success stories in the vegan business world recently has been Sgaia Vegan Meats.
As I reported a few days ago, this Scotland-based enterprise just secured a coveted listing with Whole Foods Market stores and this meteoric success has all happened in a matter of a few short years.
I’ve popped onto the blog today not to repeat myself, but rather to tell you about a superb summer BBQ pack Sgaia has available to order from their website.
You will all want one of these packs.
The BBQ Bumper Pack has everything you need for your next grilling session. It comes with 4 Aromatico Burgers, 2 packs of Streaky Rashers, 2 Smoked Steaks and, while supplies last, they’re throwing in a free pot of their signature mayo.
Check out the burgers being cooked!
Click here to order the BBQ pack now and follow Sgaia on Instagram.
There really are quality vegan cafés popping up everywhere, even in seaside towns in Kent.
Say hello to The Wallflower Café in Herne Bay!
This plant-based eatery just around the corner from the town pier must surely be doing more than a few things right because I’ve had multiple messages from Herne Bay locals wanting me to give it a shout out on the blog.
The daily menu looks absolutely packed with delicious and nutritious food, including decadent brownies and muffins as well as solid savoury plates.
If you are in the area this week, you will probably want to book a table for their vegan seasonal tapas pop up dining event. It sounds fabulous and you can check it out on the Facebook event page.
Before we look at some more food, follow The Wallflower Café on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Now the food.
Have you often felt as though the only thing missing in your life was a vegan recipe and ingredients box?
Well, you can sleep well tonight because you can now buy one. Like, today!
From today (3rd July, 2017) UK residents can order PlantCurious, the UK’s first exclusively plant-based recipe boxes, directly to their homes.
The boxes, which have been designed to make it easy for people to make delicious wholesome plant-based meals, have been curated by the innovative new plant-based business PlantCurious.
PlantCurious boxes are available to order throughout the UK and first 100 boxes are available at an introductory price of £35.
The first box includes ingredients and recipes to make a Sumurai Miso Ramen, Ruby Vurry and Loaded Sweet Pots.
PlantCurious Co-Founder Angela Gawor adds: “We kept trying recipe boxes and none of them got the the concept of plant-based. We became fed up of receiving recipe cards telling us to just leave out ingredients.”
“One supplier even sent us cheese and yogurt wrapped in sheep’s skin. Plant-based food isn’t about leaving stuff out it’s about embracing all the amazing vegetables out there and making them the centrepiece not the side dish.”
To start with, availability is limited, with 100 boxes available to order from 3rd July online (that’s today!).
London, events rarely come along like this.
Join me for a massive party this Thursday night (July 6, 2017) from 6pm as Hackney Downs Studios throws open its doors for the annual Open Studios event. This is going to be so much fun.
Hackney Downs Studios is known as the home of Hackney Downs Vegan Market and the upcoming London Vegan Beer Fest, but what a lot of people don’t realise is it is also home to a lot of artists, workshops, stores and artisan producers.
Yes, the studios are real studios!
For one night a year, Hackney Downs Studios lets you get behind the scenes by touring all of the spaces and getting up close and personal with all the artist spaces. You can even get hands on with artists, makers, illustrators, designers, potters, record labels, gin distillers, architects, video makers and more.
Try your hand at live screen printing or get crafty with weaving workshops. There will be roaming theatre performances, live painting, exclusive sample sales, installations and music, food, drinks and dancing.
But what’s in it for vegan food lovers?
Food on the evening comes in the form of a vegan mini night market. Buy and devour food from this wonderful collection of vegan traders:
Need more to entice you down this Thursday?
There is a FREE roller disco taking place inside Hackney Showroom with a DJ and after party going on until midnight. Yes, a freakin’ roller disco that won’t cost you any money and they have skates to use on site!
It’s all sounds too good to be true. Hang out with artists behind the scenes, buy vegan street food, and get disco fever on roller skates. And it’s all for free!
You need to register for a free ticket online here so they know how many people are coming along. You can also RSVP/invite friends on the Facebook event page.
Extra note: Hackney Downs Studios is the site for the 5th annual London Vegan Beer Fest taking place on July 15, 2017. More info online here.
With chef’s hailing from Brazil, Portugal & the Caribbean, the team at Café Van Gogh are on a mission to bring original, authentic, home-cooked, 100% vegan dishes to customers. Their Sunday roast has already been featured in Metro’s best places for vegan Sunday roasts while profits from the café are reinvested into employability training, work experience programmes and food workshops for marginalised members of the local community. Café Van Gogh’s unpretentious, welcoming atmosphere paired with good value, hearty cuisine is attracting foodies from far and wide.
Café Van Gogh’s founder Steve Clarke is keen to democratise access to healthier options for all. After leaving a career in in social care, Clarke intentionally set up shop in an ethnically diverse and densely populated low-income area of south London, making fresh, affordable, plant-based meals accessible to surrounding locals as well as hardcore vegan converts.
Consumer demand for healthier vegan options is undeniable; but so is the demand for great taste. Café Van Gogh’s new summer menu wins on both counts featuring:
Steve said:
We can’t wait to share our new dishes with food lovers in London & beyond. Going 100% vegan is close to my heart and a lifestyle choice I believe in wholeheartedly, but this this isn’t just a personal decision; more and more customers have been asking for it. It’s just plain common sense to serve this demand. For me, the best bit is being proud of a menu that’s so full of real flavour. It seems to hook everyone, regardless of your diet choice.
The sentiment is shared by the café’s loyal customers across social media:
“I’m coming to my sticky seitan ribs today! So thrilled to have such a wonderful, tasty, vibey vegan place on my doorstep. – Jasmine Pender, local resident & customer
As a social enterprise, Café Van Gogh invests the profits made from café sales into dedicated food workshops, training and employability opportunities for marginalised members of the local community in Brixton.
To date social impact activities have included:
Café Van Gogh is supported by Big Issue Invest which supports a number of social enterprise organisations tackling poverty and disadvantage.
Café Van Gogh wants to say thank you to the loyal customers that have supported the café over the last year.
To celebrate going 100% vegan and the new summer menu, Café Van Gogh will be rewarding weekly surprise gifts to customers that post about the restaurant or snap their favourite dishes from the menu across Facebook, Twitter & Instagram using the hashtag #CafeVanGoghLDN from 1st – 31st July. More info can be found here.
You can visit Van Gogh Café online. Follow the café on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The closest Underground station is Oval. You can see the exact location of the café here thanks to Google Maps.
Pride news from superstar vegan bakery, Ms Cupcake.
In the past we have supported larger LGBT rights organisations and charities for Pride, but this year we wanted to help a smaller project in the hope that our donations could make a bigger difference – as well as giving the project some exposure so people could see the great work that was happening there.
This year the bakery is supporting Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre which is based in London – a registered non-profit organisation.
Who are Mosaic then?
“Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre is a London-based registered non-profit organisation, which is specifically designed for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) people, as well of those who are questioning their sexuality and/or gender identity, aged thirteen to nineteen. We have three central aims – to support, educate, and inspire our young person.”
To help the charity, Ms Cupcake has created a special, one-off cupcake that they will sell across the whole of Pride festival at their Brixton shop (they are available to buy now). Proceeds from each cupcake will be donated to Mosaic.
The cupcake is a Red Velvet and Vanilla sponge mix, with rainbow coloured icing swirl, rolled in multi-coloured sprinkles, with glitter sprinkled on top.
Follow Ms Cupcake on Instagram.
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Amsterdam really has come on leaps and bounds over the last few years. While not so long ago vegan visitors had to seek out the few decent places, today that same visitor is spoilt for choice.
One recently-opened example is the Vegan Junk Food Bar, which doesn’t really need a description as it’s all in the title.
And it’s as tasty as it looks! Pictured below is a “golden crunchy seaweed sandwich” (a burger really, but filled with these crispy nuggetty bits of deliciousness) and “Loaded VJFB” fries, which came topped with all sorts of crazy goodness.
Prices are as expected for Amsterdam, and it’s proven so popular that they frequently sell out before closing time, so if you’re going (and if you’re in Amsterdam, you must) don’t get there too late.
Follow Vegan Junk Food Bar on Instagram.