Social media has been crucial to the rise of veganism in London and no platform has been more important than Instagram.
Instagram is an important component for vegan businesses trying to spread word of their offerings. The social media platform is free, focussed on visuals, and extremely user/customer focussed.
Internet usage is part of our everyday lives and we have become socialised into responding to attractive visuals that grab our attention and short bursts of information that tell us what we need to know in the least amount of time.
That sums up Instagram perfectly!
Following is a list of ten vegan businesses in London that have harnessed the power of social media effectively by amassing more than 20,000 followers on Instagram.
Follow these accounts if you aren’t already and don’t forget you can also follow my FGV Instagram account for the best of London, dining in Mexico City, and the occasional rant!
The Maidstone Vegan Festival is BACK on Saturday July 13, 2019!
It is a fab day out and this year you can get along between 11am and 4pm at the Union Street Methodist Church.
The mission statement for the festival is:
“Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” (The Vegan Society)
Our aim for the Maidstone Vegan Festival is to get people excited about the “fastest growing lifestyle movement”! We are keen to show people that going vegan doesn’t mean missing out, and that veganism is an accessible lifestyle for all that will not only benefit the animals, but also our planet and health.
Visitors to the Maidstone Vegan Festival can expect to discover a wide range of food and drink, personal care and beauty products and treatments, clothing and gifts, as well as take time to meet local animal rescues and find out more about activism in the community.
The festival has been running since 2016, but this is the first year Niki Forster and Becky Jones have organised it. They own a vegan restaurant, Potato Tomato, and have been vegan for 32 years! The sisters ran the pop up cafe at the last two festivals and will do so again this year.
Expect lots of new ideas for this year, including The Great Vegan Bake Off! There will also be a comedy show featuring the fantastic vegan comedian, Chris Stokes. Musicians for the festival so far include Rudy Warman and the Heavy Weather, and Jade Chamberlain with her super 80s on Show set.
It’s sounds like a wonderful day out for the whole family, especially as they also have a children’s area with face painting and biscuit decorating.
You can RSVP to the Facebook event page, where you can also invite friends. If you don’t use Facebook, you can find more info about the event online here.
Every single vegan in Mexico City knows all about the incredible food served at Por Siempre Vegana Taquería, but not everybody is familiar with their weekend brunch.
The vegan taco restaurant is my favourite place to eat in the Mexican capital but for some reason brunch had also passed me by.
I corrected that mistake today when Gil and I visited. I can’t believe I left it this long!
Everything was truly delicious.
The French toast served with fresh fruit set the mood and we washed it down with hot chocolate and orange juice.
Our mains were the torta de chilaquiles (a crunchy bread roll filled with fried tortillas, red salsa, onion, coriander, cream, and cheese) as well as the huarache (big tortilla topped with beans, nopales, cream, curd cheese, and seitan steak).
We were both extremely satisfied.
Por Siempre actually has two locations within minutes of each other. The taco stand on the street and the sit cafe style location.
You can get all the direction and opening hours details for both spots on the Por SiempreFacebook page.
If you are, you should get along to some the screenings taking place as part of Leeds Queer Film Festival 2019… and not just for the films!
In excellent news, all of the food served during the festival is vegan.
First things first. Let me share the aims of the festival:
We create spaces to showcase queer cinema with a focus on independent and DIY films. We screen films that elevate and prioritise the voices and work of those most marginalised within our LGBTQ+ communities. LQFF is run by unpaid volunteers and we are not for profit; money raised from our festival goes towards future events and supporting queer filmmakers. We aim to make our events as friendly, affordable, accessible and inclusive as we can. By bringing people together and building links, we hope to strengthen our communities.
Now, what about the food?
All the food is vegan and all the food is EXTREMELY inexpensive. Snacks are usually £1 while a hot meal will set you back between £2 and £3. Devour cakes, samosas, sausage rolls, hot dogs, soup, and curry. There will also be hot and cold drinks.
The festival is unfunded so they rely on selling food to make a little bit of money. The more you eat, the more you’re supporting the future of the festival!
Click here to discover all the details and buy tickets for Leeds Queer Film Festival 2019, which runs May 9 until 12, 2019.
The market town of Harleston in Norfolk has a new vegan café and it looks sensational!
Hungry Cat Vegan Cafe is a brand new vegan café/deli in Harleston and they are bringing vibrant, colourful, and delicious food to the local population.
The irresistible menu contains wraps, burgers, toasties, panini, smoothies, teas, coffees, cakes as well as take home treats such as cheeses, meats, chocolates, sour cream, cooking cream and whipping cream.
Visitors can fill up on alcoholic drinks including wines and beers in addition to unique super food lattes.
The café is making a name for itself thanks to its savoury plates including scrambled tofu on toast, mushrooms on toast, and the stunning mezze platters. The specials board showcases a rotating menu with standouts including beetroot salad with hummus, pasta, vegetable bake, lasagne, and sweet potato with lentil bake… and don’t forget the sausage rolls and pies.
Of course everything is 100% vegan.
Razz from Hungry Cat sent me some details to make it easier for you to visit:
OPENING TIMES – Tuesday until Friday 9am – 4:30pm. Saturday 9am – 4pm. Sunday 9am – 3pm. Closed on Mondays.
PARKING AND LOCATION – Harleston has a lot of free parking, the closest to the café is at the East of England Co-op supermarket behind them. Take the first road on the left after the café and drive directly into the East of England Co-op. You will only have a two minute walk to the cafe. Hungry Cat is at 25 The Thoroughfare, Harleston IP20 9AS. Click here to see the exact location thanks to Google Maps.
If you have been to London during the past few years, or you live there permanently, you will probably have visited vegan ice cream parlour Yorica!
The Soho location (along with their travelling ice cream van) really is one of the leading vegan food providers in the UK.
But the great news for those outside London is that Yorica! is now making waves in supermarkets around the UK.
As of today (Monday May 6, 2019) you can now buy the brand new vanilla Yorica! tubs in Waitrose stores around the country.
This is fabulous news.
And if you didn’t already know, their Double Chocolate Cookie tubs are available via Ocado and Waitrose while the Salted Caramel is being sold exclusively via Ocado.
Be sure to follow Yorica! on Instagram to keep updated with their expansion.
Phung Kay make some of the best food on the planet.
That’s not up for discussion. Just the facts, people.
I’m honoured to have collaborated with the Chinese cuisine superstars on several occasions and now I’m thrilled to hear two big news pieces about their food business.
News the first?
I want to give a HUGE congratulations to Phung Kay on their recent award. The sensational foodies picked up the Golden Chopsticks Award for Best Vegetarian dish.
I’m not surprised but I am extremely happy for them.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw3-RKggEh1/
And what is the other news?
Phung Kay now have a gorgeous tea house in Model Market Lewisham!
This is the best news for South London. Phung Kay will be elevating vegan eating to a whole new level and I promise you that the area has never seen anything as outstanding as the food they serve.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwH47OIA7fg/
To keep updated on the Model Market menu, you need to follow Phung Kay on Instagram.
And of course there will be more news and events in the near future from Phung Kay because you can’t control cuisine this good.
This post was originally written for, and published, in the November 2018 issue of Vegan Life Magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine online here.
Waiter, there is a pork chop in my soup!
As colder weather creeps in and daylight hours shorten (well, for some readers!), one of the most versatile food types regains popularity and springs to life on menus everywhere.
Yes. It’s time to say hello to soup again.
Soup might not seem like a dynamic topic and I’m imagining a few fingers twitching as you all decide if you should skip my column this month, but I promise that I have a silly soup story from my past that will entertain you.
Strangely, it involves pork chops and it serves as study of what we vegans sometimes have to deal with when we live in a non-vegan household.
Let’s take a trip back in time to the 90s when I was a meat-free shop assistant living my pre-Fat Gay Vegan life in Australia, listening to Alanis Morissette and Take That. Circumstance had me house-sharing with a couple who were loud and proud carnivores, meaning I stayed out of the kitchen around meal time.
One blustery Sydney evening found me stumbling into the kitchen to find my housemates cooking up a huge simmering pot of pumpkin soup. My nostrils flared and my tummy rumbled as I was asked if I would like a bowl.
I leapt at the offer.
I was busy pulling open cupboards to grab the utensils I needed when I noticed the most peculiar thing happening. The cook was reaching into the soup with a pair of metal tongs to retrieve two pork chops!
Why were there pork chops in the pumpkin soup?! My mouth dropped open and I must have looked incredulous because the chop-wielding chef told me that there was nothing to worry about. The meat had previously been cooked and they were only using the hot soup to reheat it.
I fled the kitchen and hid in my room for a few hours, shaken by the experience. The story actually makes me laugh when I tell it now, but at the time I was horrified!
If you put my pork chop debacle to one side, soup can actually be one of the dishes to unite vegans and non-vegans and is one of the easiest foods to veganise.
So, let’s have a brief chat about vegan soup and how it can please everyone.
Soup is the perfect food for single vegans. It can be thrown together with whatever you have available, you can season it to match your tastes exactly, and leftovers can be frozen for another meal on another day. There is no such thing as making too much soup!
If you are a big soup fan and you like to experiment in the kitchen, you can be inspired by soup recipes from all over the planet. Carry out a quick Internet search for Mexican black bean soup or the legendary borscht from Russia. You don’t have to be limited to tomato and spring vegetable (not there is anything wrong with them!).
A quality soup is also the perfect vegan stealth move. Take your signature vegan soup to parties, potlucks, and family gatherings and if it tastes amazing, nobody will bat an eyelid. Soup can be veganised easily and I’ve witnessed many plant-based soups be the favourite dish on the table.
Even though we associate soup with colder months, we need to be aware that it isn’t just a winter time concern.
If you are in a part of the world where the weather is warm right now, start to explore the wonder of chilled soups. The aforementioned borscht is a delicacy when served cold, as are gazpacho or the marvelous naengmyeon noodle soup from Korea. I even once enjoyed a chilled watermelon soup in an Indian restaurant in Barcelona.
One of my favourite qualities of soup is that it can be an extremely economical choice. If you can afford some beans and vegetables, plus a decent vegan stock powder, you have got yourself a nutritious plant-based meal that won’t break the bank.
I really am in love with soups all over again. They are cheap, tasty, versatile, and a great way to please all types of eaters. Soups are the food bridge across the vegan/non-vegan divide (and let’s not forget how easily they can be made gluten free).
Just remember to check for pork chops if you are ever offered a bowl in someone else’s kitchen!
You have probably seen the videos and headlines doing the rounds about the ‘protesters’ showing up outside vegan events and restaurants to eat raw meat.
They most infamously targeted VegfestUK Brighton by trying to distress attendees at the entrance. Their whole routine is to chew on dead animals in order to upset vegans. Their actions are grotesque but weirdly counterproductive as many non-vegans are equally repulsed and therefore engaged in thinking about animal cruelty.
Essential Vegan Cafe in Shoreditch, London was recently targeted by these anti-vegan trolls so I’ve created a Facebook event in order to unite the vegan community in an act of support for the business.
PLEDGE TO VISIT Essential Vegan Café AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE AUGUST 31, 2019
These trolls have been attempting to disrupt vegan businesses by chewing on raw animal carcasses and saying provocative statements about vegans being unhealthy and mentally ill.
During April 2019, these antagonists entered the Essential Vegan Café in Shoreditch. Some of them were carrying and chewing on animal bodies. If you wish to see the full video filmed and shared by the anti-vegan trolls, you can visit YouTube. It is graphic.
Following on from the invasion of the café, the trolls and their supporters waged a campaign of intimidation and slander against the café including leaving fake negative reviews online and prank calling the premises.
This is our chance to fight back against these absurd and harmful attacks. We are pledging to come together as a community of kind people in order to help Essential Vegan Café thrive and prosper in the aftermath of this attack on their business.
By RSVPing to this Facebook event, you are promising to visit and eat with Essential Vegan Café at least once before the end of August 2019.
By working together as a collective, we are ensuring the financial security of this unique and special vegan business. We will redress any damage done by these trolls. We will make the café an even stronger and beloved space than it already is.
RSVP now to pledge to visit Essential Vegan. Use the ‘invite’ function to tell all your friends to join the fight. Share the Facebook event far and wide. If you don’t use Facebook, share this blog post and visit the café anyway.
And be sure to post all your gorgeous food photos in the Facebook event when you do visit!
As I reported a little while back, superstar vegan meat company Oumph! is set to launch a new vegan burger.
Now in even more exciting news, they are also launching vegan ribs and vegan mince!
Yes. Vegan ribs!
The burger is set for launch in Sweden, the Nordics, the UK, and Ireland this spring and summer (exact dates and retailer details to be made official soon!).
However, the sticky ribs and mince are launching only in Sweden… for now.
Oumph! told me other countries will follow for these two incredible products, however no more details are available at this time.
This Swedish company really is leading the pack when it comes to gorgeous and delicious vegan meat alternatives.
(@whatthepitta)
