London vegan news, reviews & events
If you love incredible vegan food, discovering ethical goodies, and generally being surrounded by like-minded, compassionate folks, then you need to get yourself to Coventry Vegan Festival on Saturday, 5th April 2025.
This anticipated event is being put together by Vegan Events UK, who are known for throwing some of the biggest and best vegan festivals across the country.
So, what’s in store? Keep reading below!
Fifteen years ago when I started this very blog, if you wanted to be social as a vegan in London you had to make it happen yourself. There were no vegan pubs and certainly no high street chains with dedicated plant-based menus.
This wilderness forced me to launch London Vegan Drinks, a monthly gathering where we carved out a space for ourselves in a world that barely acknowledged we existed. London Vegan Potluck was another community-driven event I curated, where people cooked and shared food because there weren’t many places to eat out.
Back then, if you wanted a vegan meal, you might get lucky at Pogo Café in Hackney (if they were open and serving something edible) or a measly number of eateries that weren’t always great. Other than that, it was whatever scraps you could cobble together from independent health food stores and Holland & Barrett. There were no vegan ready meals, hardly any supermarket own-brand plant milks, and certainly no Gregg’s vegan sausage rolls.
Then the independent vegan revolution happened. Slowly at first and then rapidly.
Hey London, are you looking for a new experience? Perhaps something off the beaten path?
You can join wild food enthusiast, Ken Greenway, for a foraging experience at the amazing award-winning Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park this February!
Ken will share his love and deep knowledge of foraging and will introduce you to the everyday plants you can eat, opening your eyes to a new world of possibilities and flavours. He will share his knowledge of seasonal wild foods as well as where and when to pick them.
These outdoor adventures in foraging happen semi-regularly throughout the year and are curated by food security charity Made In Hackney with the next date scheduled for Saturday February 15, 2025.
Let me tell you a little more information and show you where to book.
I haven’t done any sort of supermarket product update in a while but this news certainly got me in the mood to share with you all.
I’ve documented my appreciation of the Squeaky Bean brand quite a bit over on my Instagram account and have even collaborated with the brand on a few pieces of content.
They sell really fab, ready-to-eat meat alternatives that are filling a big gap in UK supermarkets… and my belly.
The latest products to join the Squeaky family are these sandwich-friendly Tofu Slices.
Available in either Spinach & Basil or Red Pepper & Tomato, these slices are ready to go and will improve your sandwich game.
But where can you buy them?
The title of this blog is a joke I’ve made a few times, in a few different forms.
I’ve joked about not celebrating Christmas while expressing my devotion to overeating on Christmas day. I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but that doesn’t stop me from eating food associated with this problematic calendar date.
And just like the above festivities, Easter comes with it’s own delicacies that I love to consume while simultaneously rejecting the cultural and religious framework surrounding it.
Yes. I’m coming out of the closest as an atheist who is obsessed with Easter eggs!
My family wasn’t religious when I was growing up in Australia and I only attended church for weddings and funerals, but Easter was one of those celebrations that reached even the most non-observant of the population Down Under.
As a child, I would build a nest to which the Easter Bunny would deliver chocolate and candy eggs once a year (a tad confusing when I ponder this as an adult). This nest was more often than not simply a beach towel rolled into a spiral, placed in the living rom or at the foot of my bed. Sometimes I would shred newspaper to create a cosy, cushioning base to protect my expected egg delivery! I have no idea if this was a cultural practice outside of my family but we did it for most of my childhood years.
I suppose it was this custom that instilled in me a joy for Easter eggs that has lived long past my childhood and even long past retaining (most of) my family in my life!
This probably isn’t the right place to do a deep dive into my complex family history, however it is the perfect platform for sharing my current Easter faves with you here in the UK.
Check these out!
I imagine a lot of people feel the way I feel about Brighton.
Brighton, UK is one of those places that we think of as being more exciting and alternative than perhaps it really is. The seaside town has always held a certain sense of excitement, mystery, and creative energy, long being a beacon for cultural outsiders.
Queer people, punk rockers, and hippies would converge on destinations such as Brighton to look for likeminded personalities in order to create meaningful community.
In 2025 it now appears impossible to escape capitalism and gentrification, as a visitor to the city finding a Brighton overflowing with expensive tourist trap businesses as the independents get increasingly pushed out. The outsiders who made Brighton an desirable and exciting place are now in turn being rejected by soaring rents and a landscape unfriendly to independent business owners and community groups.
Seven years ago, a lifelong dream of mine came true. I published a book. Not just any book, rather a book that poured every ounce of my heart, values, and hope for a better world into its pages. Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t wasn’t just about veganism—it was about compassionate consumerism, social justice, and the belief that the choices we make can ripple out to create real change.
I worked hard on this book. Every word, every anecdote, and every call to action. To see it in print was a true moment of pride, but to have people still connecting with it seven years later? That’s a gift beyond anything I could have imagined.
This is a call for anyone looking for an exclusive Scandinavian dining event on February 14, 2025 in central London.
It doesn’t matter if you attend with a partner/s, friends, or on your own. This meal is suitable for people in all types of romantic entanglements.
Celebrate Veganuary’s Finale with Purpose and Flavour
Join me for an exclusive, one-night-only dining experience at E3 Vegan, a proudly independent and celebrated restaurant nestled on Roman Road, East London.
This special supper club is your chance to savour an inventive three-course plant-based menu created by Head Chef Marc Joseph, formerly of the iconic Vanilla Black, London’s first vegetarian and vegan fine dining destination.
Born out of a love for sustainability and a passion for exceptional cuisine, E3 Vegan’s hyper-local, seasonal approach has made it a standout on the culinary map.
What do you do for vegan groceries when you live in Kent, England?
However you answered that question in your head, you can now add Wheat’s The Problem to your list of solutions.
This grocery store is tucked away on an industrial estate in Sittingbourne, Kent and looks to be a vegan grocery oasis.
While not everything in the store is plant-based a huge chunk of what’s on offer is, with the shelves lined with Fry’s Family Foods, Follow Your Heart, Tofurky, Plamil and many, many more vegan brands. I would be here all day if I started listing them and you all know how lazy I am.
As you can tell from the store name, Wheat’s The Problem is also a specialty shopping destination for consumers looking for wheat free groceries with many items being suitable for coeliacs.
Get along to Wheat’s The Problem for vegan groceries and support independent business.
Click here to join the Facebook group for the shop. This is where you can keep track of all the fantastic new products being added each week. You can also click here to see where the shop is located.
