Vegan pizza revolution

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London. It just got amazing for vegan pizza lovers.

Check it out.

Firezza is a London-wide chain of pizza shops specialising in handmade, chewy bases with fresh toppings and, from this week, vegan cheese as an optional topping.

PeTA reached out to me earlier in the week to let me know the owners of Firezza had made the decision to include VioLife as an optional extra across all 17 locations. This is surely the biggest chain of pizza restaurants in the UK to be offering a vegan cheese pizza.

Very fortunately for me, one of the 17 Firezza locations is situated just a few minutes walk from my house. This was my experience today.

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Last chance to enjoy

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You all know one of my favourite things to eat in London is the seitan burger from Essential Vegan, right?

Vanessa and her helpers have been serving this gorgeous handheld delight at Pump food market in Shoreditch for the past few months.

If you haven’t already treated yourself, you need to be really fast before they disappear for a while.

Sunday September 13th, 2015 is the final day you will find Essential Vegan in Shoreditch. Following that date, Vanessa will be packing up the kitchen and looking for a permanent location.

Don’t miss out! Get to Shoreditch this weekend.
Don’t forget to order some crunchy polenta fries with your final burger!

Extra note: this photo originally appeared on my Instagram account.

Visit Essential Vegan online, like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

nye bottom banner 2015

On the map

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I have recently been on and on about the vegan Italian food business housed in a double decker bus. If you have been anywhere near this blog or my Instagram account these past few months, you would have seen me absolutely singing the praises of Just Fab.

The cuisine created by Chef Myra is some of the best vegan food in the country and everybody I ask to join me for a meal on the bus walks away awestruck by the delicious experience.

Just Fab has been trading every Saturday on Shoreditch High Street (you can read my original glowing review here) but the rest of the week left fans of this superstar Italian kitchen high and dry.

But things have changed! The Just Fab bus has a permanent location where it will be serving delicious vegan food all the time. Yep, you can get the best vegan Italian food in London six days a week.

just fab vegan bus london

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Cake in a jar

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Post by:

Caitlin panel

A new vegan bakery opened just a couple of weeks ago in Barcelona, which seems to bursting at the seams these days with new vegetarian and vegan restaurants. But bakeries? This one’s the only 100% vegan bakery! I knew I had to check it out.

La Pastisseria Besneta is so new Google couldn’t even seem to find it, so I headed there in hopes that it was open on weekends. Luckily, it was open – and I got to taste test their lemon meringue cake!

La Besneta sells whole cakes, or individual servings of cake in a jar. The cakes in a jar are super cute (and super hipster), and wouldn’t look out of place in Shoreditch. It makes the whole cake buying and eating experience just a little bit more exciting. The day I visited, they had two muffins and four different kinds of cake (carrot cake, lemon meringue and two different chocolate cakes, one with raspberry filling and one without). I selected the lemon meringue.

besnetacake

 

The meringue was light and fluffy and the lemon was just the right amount of tart. The only downside is that while cake in a jar is very photogenic, it’s a little bit difficult to eat. Make sure you have a spoon – and not fork – handy!

If you visit Barcelona, definitely check out this new vegan bakery in the Gracia neighbourhood. Like the bakery on Facebook.

south of france cruise

Shredded tofu burrito

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Vegans have got it good in Scotland’s cities. Plant based food is everywhere, including this shredded tofu burrito.

I need to get my hands on one of these very soon!

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Sunday roast

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London doesn’t have an amazing choice for Sunday roast dinners, so it is wonderful to see this new addition to the plant-based landscape.

11960197_909997619065400_8171776331583181226_nThis glorious plate of vegan comfort food is now being served up by Kabaret @ Karamel every Sunday (they just celebrated one year of being a vegan bar/restaurant!).

The mighty meal contains smoked tofu, chestnut & almond Wellington, roast potatoes, carrot & turnip mash, Bavarian red cabbage, peas and red wine gravy.

Good stuff!

Visit Kabaret online, like them on Facebook and follow on Twitter.

vote vegfest 2015

All the vegan photos

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Get ready for this HUGE collection of photos.

I just arrived home from a few hours at the Specialty & Fine Food Fair 2015. This annual trade event is housed in the mammoth National Hall at London Olympia and is always a great place to spot to find new vegan products, as well as reconnect with some old favourites.

Check out everything that caught my eye.

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Vienna calling

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Super special guest post by Hanna. Thank you!

My partner and I are just back from spending a few days in Vienna, which was quite easy to be vegan in. We found many places had clearly labelled vegan options, a wurst place that did a vegan sausage and a 100% vegan ice cream parlour. But the stand-out experience was Swing Kitchen.

Swing Kitchen (1)

It is an entirely vegan, diner-style establishment. On our first encounter we had a schnitzel burger, vegan nuggets with “chilli-tomato-tatar” sauce, tiramisu and kirsch soda. All of it was fantastic. The nugget coating with it’s sesame seeds was delicious and the sauce had a surprisingly refreshing taste. The tiramisu was creamy and slightly orangey, which worked really well. Of course, we had to go back for our last Vienese meal and both had the cheese burger, which is the best vegan burger I have ever had – you could really taste the cheese!

Anyway, I thought I’d give you a heads up, just in case you or any of your guests on the NYE cruise had the time or inclination to visit Swing Kitchen on your brief stop there.

Thanks, Hanna!

You can like Swing Kitchen on Facebook.

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South of the river treats

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I have often heard about The Waiting Room in the south London enclave of Deptford, but really wasn’t sure where Deptford was situated. It sounded like one of those places you would never visit due to it being in the middle of nowhere.

I don’t know why I thought that, I just did.

This week led to somewhat of a revelation as I discovered there is a train departing every 10 minutes from London Bridge station that takes an incredibly short time to deliver its passengers to Deptford, just one station away.

The Waiting Room is a vegetarian coffee shop offering vegan alternatives for almost their entire menu. It would be marvellous to see this rad store front make the switch to completely vegan, but until they do vegans still have a lot of food and drink to keep them busy.

Check out what I got my paws on during my visit this week.

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Just Mayo in the UK

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We have all grown weary waiting for Just Mayo to arrive on Tesco shelves as promised a few months ago.

just mayo UK

The bad news first: it appears it is not coming to Tesco anytime in the near future. A few people have heard back from both the mayo company and the supermarket with the message being the same. Tesco currently has no plans to stock the cruelty-free mayo.

However, people in the UK do have one very expensive option for getting some Just Mayo into their kitchen.

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