Flicking the Vs

I spent 48 hours in Paris: Here's where I ate as gluten-free vegan

2026-10-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, I made my way through Germany and France by rail. As a vegan with coeliac disease, getting a good meal wasn't always a simple task (more due to the coeliac than the veganism). The trip ended in Paris, where I spent two great days. I used to live in Paris a long while ago, and coming back to the city 20 years and numerous visits later, I still find new places to explore and wonders to marvel at. I particularly like that Paris has a handful of restaurants that are vegan AND gluten-free at the same time, so I get to spend money with people who support veganism while knowing I can have anything on the menu.

One new place for me was Kapunka Vegan, a vegan Thai place where everything is gluten-free apart from the beer. The place is small - there's a handful of tables, so book in advance. The menu is pretty small too - five starters, four mains, four desserts.

the tofu satay and summer rolls at Kapunka Vegan

We chose the summer rolls and the satay tofu. The summer rolls were bright and fresh, and just the sort of entree you need on a boiling summer night in Paris, as it was when we visited. The satay was also served cold - I'd been expecting hot, but maybe that was no bad thing given the weather. The tofu in tofu satay is basically a vehicle for satay sauce into your mouth, so I was a bit disappointed with the sauce - it was a bit sweet, a bit thin, a bit bland. I still enjoyed it, but for a homemade sauce, I was really looking forward to something a bit more exciting.

Yellow and red curries with rice at Kapunka Vegan

I went for a mitaki to follow, a yellow curry. On the menu, it's marked as a 'a bit spicy', but it felt more on the mellower side of spicy. I was quite happy to work my way through the rich bowl of veggies and tofu in creamy sauce, with enough rice to make sure none of the coconut-rich sauce went to waste. I can't remember what the other dish here was - maybe a red curry? The bowl looks about half the size of the mitaki, so if you're hungry, make sure you go for that.

Kapunka Vegan

kapunka-vegan.fr

4 Rue de Damiette, 75002 Paris, France

+33142337899

Another of the stops on our vegan-gluten-free eating tour was Riz Riz, which is also both entirely gluten-free and vegan - another win for me!

It's not the first time I've been there - I last visited a couple of years ago - and it looks like the menu is almost exactly the same. Like last time, we ordered the 'rice table' - a selection of eight individual dishes with rice on the side, all meant for sharing.

There were a few dishes that stood out, and few that just didn't hit the spot.

The rice table at Riz Riz

Normal tabbouleh is made with cous cous - which contains what. The Riz Riz version swaps it out for rice instead, with tomatoes, mint, onion, chick peas and vinaigrette. I think of tabbouleh as something fresh and vibrant, loaded with mint and parsley, cucumber and tomato. The Riz Riz version's rice to everything else ratio was way off, and it felt a bit bland. The chotpoti - a Bangladeshi street food mix that's sour and full of spice - had a similar problem. The Riz Riz chotpoti is served with corn chips, which swamped the chotpoti's flavours, which were already muted and lacking the traditional sour note of tamarind. The beetroot hummus was nice enough, but I would have loved a more interesting cracker as an accompaniment than rice cakes.

The rice table, with the Black Panther at the front

And onto the winners - I loved the sweet potato waffle with guacamole. I would love to come back for brunch and eat waffle after waffle. The 'black panther' is a tiny buddha bowl with lots of elements to love - five spice smoked tofu, edamame, avocado and black rice. There's a spinach dahl, which is gentle and comforting as you could ask for from a dahl. And there are two curries as well - a dragon curry, inspired by Thailand, and a mango curry, as a nod to India. The dragon curry is described as hot, but your mileage may vary - I must have missed the chill in there, because it didn't feel spicy to me. I enjoyed both curries nonetheless.

Most of all, I enjoyed that ordering the rice table was a chance to try everything on the menu. Well - almost. After eight dishes and some rice on the side, I really didn't need more food. Which was a shame, because there were a lot of vegan, gluten free desserts (the cheesecakes looked particuarly great) that I'd have loved to have tried, but didn't have room for. Next time maybe I'll start with dessert and work my way backward through the menu, so I can finally try everything on the menu.

Riz Riz

riz-riz.com

contact@riz-riz.com

221 Rue Saint Martin, 75003 Paris +33 1 83 89 39 70

66 Rue Hauteville, 75010 Paris +33 1 45 81 36 42

Most of my lunches and breakfasts were from Copains, an entirely gluten-free bakery chain, where you can pick up cakes, pastries, sandwiches, and other baked goods. Not all of it is vegan - I think maybe a quarter to a third of the menu - but there's lots of interesting things to try, like this pistachio croissant.

Copains' Redwan pistachio croissant

I ate at Copains quite a few times recently, in both London and Paris branches, and you can read my full review of all the vegan options here. I think my favourite thing I tried was this vegan quiche - I think it's only available in the French Copains branches at the minute, so if you're in Paris, definitely get yourself one of these. Copains isn't cheap, but if you're vegan and coeliac, it's a real life saver to be able to find yourself gluten-free and vegan food pretty much across Paris. Worth checking out, as long as payday wasn't too long ago!

Copains' vegan quiche

Copains

copains-paris.com

Branches across France

London has a new coeliac-friendly cafe - I made a terrible mistake before I went to check out the vegan choices

2026-10-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I went to the Free From Show and ate all the vegan things. I had a great time, and found loads of new vendors to try, as well as revisiting some old favourites. One food truck I didn't buy anything from was Sonny's.

Sonny's describes itself as the first coeliac-safe fast food brand. It sells a small menu of toasties, bowls and sides. There were so many great places to try, I ended up walking past Sonny's in search of more exciting-sounding fare.

A few months later, and Sonny's opened its first bricks and mortar location in London, in Shoreditch's Boxpark. Happily, I happened to be east London the other day and needing lunch, so I dropped by. What I learned was that walking past Sonny's the first time was a real mistake.

Sonny's in Shoreditch - find it upstairs at Boxpark

There are five toasties to choose from, one of which is vegan. All of the toasties can be made into bowls, where the bread is swapped out for wild rice and grains. As a newly-diagnosed coeliac, I'm still learning about how different each brand and type of gluten-free bread is - some are dense and dry, others sweet and bouncy (and if you're a vegan, you have the added complexity that a lot of gluten-free bread has eggs in it).

If you're going to a gluten-free place, especially one that sells toasties, it seems rude not to check out the bread. I ordered a 'mushroom one' - a toastie with roasted peppers, mushrooms, and vegan cheese. I really don't love a lot of non-cashew-nut-based cheese, which this was. I think this is the exception that proves the rule - it was actually great, soft and gentle tasting, and didn't overwhelm the generous helpings of vegetables.

A toasted sandwich with veggies and vegan cheese doesn't sound like the most exciting thing in the world - it might be the sort of thing you're going to make for lunch yourself. So why would you pay Sonny's to make one for you (apart from because you're coeliac!)? For one reason - because they're great!

Sonny's 'the mushroom one' toastie

I think I walked past Sonny's because I thought I would be underwhelmed by the food. In fact, the opposite happened - it was so much better than I'd been expecting.

Vegan sides are a choice of sweet potato fries or normal potato fries. My unpopular opinion is that sweet potatoes fries are not as good as normal fries (sorry sweet potato enjoyers) so I went for the standard potato option. They were, happily, great fries

I think the price for a toastie, fries, a drink and a dip came out as £16, which doesn't feel bad for this part of London (or most parts of London, really). I would have got a milkshake (everything at Sonny's is dairy free, and the person behind the counter assured me that they were vegan) but they weren't available on the day I visited.

There are no (vegan or non-vegan) sweet options for after you've finished your meal at Sonny's but if you do, walk down the stairs outside Sonny's and you'll find yourself outside the After School Cookie Club, which is all vegan and gluten free, and Guiseppe's Tiramisu, which is all vegan, but not gluten free.

I'm not small of appetite, but I couldn't finish the whole of the meal above - the portions are decent.

I thoroughly enjoyed eating at Sonny's, and as a vegan with coeliac disease, finding somewhere that I can eat safely, let alone eat well, is often a challenge. Sonny's absolutely nailed it on both fronts.

Sonny's

sonnysfood.com

Unit 60, Box park, Shoreditch High St, London E1 6GY

Copains: An honest review of the vegan options at Paris and London's hottest gluten-free bakery

2026-10-03T09:51:22.695-07:00

When Copains - a French bakery chain - set up shop in London recently, it made all sort of headlines.

Those headlines weren't anything to do with the fact it's an entirely gluten-free bakery, or that it was a French import, or that the interiors make it look like a high end jewellery store rather than somewhere you go to pick up a sandwich on your lunch break. In fact, they weren't anything to do with the food at all. All the headlines seemed to be about the prices, and how high they were. Copains chose to set up its two London branches of Copains in parts of London - Covent Garden and Islington - already known for their high prices, which shows just how expensive Copains' wares must be in order were to generate such media outrage.

Copains is a bit more of an established name in Paris compared to London, having opened in 2021 expanding to a fair number of branches in Paris, Brussels and beyond. Over the summer, I spent a couple of days in the French capital, and stopped by Copains a few times to pick up breakfast or lunch (finding branches of a coeliac- and vegan-friendly bakery chain across Paris came in really handy when I was wandering across the city!) When I got home, I stopped into one of the London branches too, to compare the difference across either side of la Manche.

First up, there's no way around it, yes, the prices are high. For a fancy dessert, you're looking at around €13 or the equivalent in pounds. For a pastry, more like €7. Even a black coffee is €5. It's really not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

But were the high prices worth it? Let me run you through what I ate in London and Paris, and give you my honest review.

Before I start talking about London vs Paris, it's worth checking out the Food Standards Agency's hygiene ratings for Copains. At the time I went, they were 0 for the Covent Garden branch and 1 for the Islington branch. The ratings go from 0 (the worst) to 5 (the best), so both are rated as needing significant improvement. I'll be honest, I didn't know that at the time when I was eating the food at Copains, so hopefully there'll be a much higher rating by the next time I drop by.

I think some of the best things that I tried in both London and Paris were the tarts - yep, those €13 tarts. I tried the Elea, a pecan tart; the shady, a pistachio tart, and Gisele, the raspberry tart (all the items at Copains go by a human name, for some reason. Who doesn't love an anthropomorphised dessert?)

I'd love to drop a beautiful image of any of those tarts, but I can't, because one of the problems with Copains is that there isn't really anywhere to eat inside, it's more of a buy-and-takeaway place. Which is fine, but I've found that every time I bought one of those beautiful pastry items, I get it to my destination only to find that that beautiful dessert is now a bunch of shattered shards of pastry and smears of cream in a fancy box (and the boxes are very fancy indeed). Here's the best I could manage:

They taste gorgeous and they're clearly high end - crisp shortcrust pastry that almost defies its gluten-free-ness, mounds of cream, pastes of fruit or nuts, and all those sort of fancy creams and inserts that you'd expect from a fancy French patisserie. There's some impressive ambition there, and I can't fault the taste - all the tarts I tried were great. I could have easily split the Shady with someone else, so the portion sizes aren't bad either. There isn't anywhere else selling vegan and gluten free patisserie like Copains right now, so I guess I'll be emptying my wallet for the foreseeable.

Onto the less fancy side of Copains - viennoiserie and cakes. I tried a slice of the Vanessa carrot cake and, alas, I didn't love it. The textue wasn't appealing - a bit on the dry and dense side. The frosting was pretty good, but there just wasn't enough to combat the desert-like nature of the cake.

I tried two of the viennoiserie - the Angelika cinnamon babka and the Redwan pistachio croissant. Copains changes its menu every so often, taking some items off the menu and adding in new ones.

Recently, the chain decided to remove the babka and keep the croissant. If I'd have been in charge, I would have made the opposite decision - the Angelika was bouncy, sweet, and full of cinnamon. And how often do you see a vegan babka, let alone a vegan gluten-free one? I bought the babka twice, I enjoyed it that much. The Redwan was fine, but the pastry could have been better- too brittle, too hard - which is a bit of shame when 90 percent of the croissant is that pastry. It was fine, I'd eat it again, but for £6.50, I'd want a kickass croissant, not just an OK one.

Onto the savouries! More hits, more misses. I checked the menu a couple of days before we visited, and there was the promise of a tofu sandwich (the only vegan sandwich option). This is good news. I like tofu, and I'm very happy to eat it in a sandwich all day. Only when we arrived, the tofu sandwich had been swapped out in favour of a vegan feta and avocado bagel. I have never met a vegan feta I like (sorry, vegan feta lovers), so I was already primed to not enjoy this. If I did like feta though, I'd also be disappointed, as the ratio of cheese to avocado is way off - there's a few modest crumbles of cheese to a vat of avocado. Don't eat this bagel before a big date or a job interview - the avocado is so voluminous any attempt to bite down on it will shoot a jet of fatty green mush onto your face and clothing. Then there is the issue of raspberries. I guess they're in there for a bit of a contrast - a tart-sweet flavour to cut through the fattiness of the avocado. Fair enough. I don't know it was a combination that I really enjoyed, and I enjoyed it less because there was a handful of raspberries, so biting into the bagel was like playing raspberry Russian roulette - I just didn't know if I was going to get a good bite or a bad one. I didn't finish my bagel and handed the remaining half on to Mr Flicking the Vs, who was very happy to demolish it, so your mileage may vary. If I tell you it was over €11, your mileage may vary even more.

My favourite couple of savoury items were maybe the ones that seemed least exciting at first glance - a vegan quiche and a loaf of bread. I love quiche. If I see it on the menu, I'm ordering it. I used to buy the Higgidy vegan quiche on the regular before coeliac disease put paid to that. So, despite the nearly €8 price tag (yep, you read that right, that's EIGHT EUROS FOR A SMALL QUICHE), I decided to buy one.

(A quick note about the photo above - the quiche doesn't come with a small half-moon taken out of the pastry. That was me taking a bite before getting my phone out, sorry!) Was it worth the €8? Well, it tasted great, the veggies were well roasted, the not-egg filling was soft, and I couldn't taste the cheese, so that was a win. I really enjoyed it. I can't find another commercially available vegan, gluten free quiche, let alone one that was really tasty, I would totally buy this again.

If you're looking for a bargain though, you need to look at the breads. You need to ignore the loaves that are nudging nearly €20, and look at the baguettes, which are about €2 or £3. There are two versions, with quinoa flour or buckwheat flour. I tried the buckwheat one and loved it - a sort of dense, very savoury loaf that's great for sandwiches, or just cutting a bit off and slathering in vegan butter, and eating over the kitchen sandwich before anyone notices you and wonders why only half a loaf is left.

So, is Copains really worth the high price tag? Well, some of it really is, and some of it really isn't. I'd say dodge the loaf cakes and bagels, try the viennoiserie and see what you think and snap up the vegan patisserie, quiches, and baguettes. If you're coeliac, this place is definitely worth checking out - just go after payday.

Eating vegan and gluten-free in Strasbourg: Here are some great places to try

2026-09-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, I did a rail trip through Germany and France, and ended up in Strasbourg. It's a super cool like city - the sort of place you can head out of your hotel, walk around for a whole day and stumble upon all sorts of interesting old streets, tucked away courtyards, great spots to eat and drink, or just to sit down and while away the day people watching.

The weather was good while we were in Strasbourg, and I spent a lot of my time eating picnics by all the canals. Picnics are a great option for coeliacs and/or vegans on holiday - they're always available, they're often cheaper than eating out, you can check out the full list of ingredients yourself, and eating outdoors on a summer evening is a pretty nice thing to do. Bread, fruit, crisps, dips, vegan charcuterie or cheese if it's available, olives or pickles - you can make a good supermarket picnic with not much effort. I love looking around supermarkets abroad, finding all the fun things you don't have at home and wondering how many of them you can shove in your suitcase so you can enjoy holiday food when your holiday is over.

But if you want a proper meal, Strasbourg is happily home to a couple of great options for food that's both vegan and gluten free.

My first honourable mention is for Harmonie Bowl and Juice, a restaurant that describes itself as serving Asian food with a naturopathic approach. It's entirely vegan and entirely gluten-free, which is good news for the coeliacs out there.

The menu is divide into starters, 'harmonie bowls', and traditional dishes. We ate here on a couple of nights, and had spring rolls each time, because finding vegan and gluten-free spring rolls is a rarity pretty much everywhere, let alone France. I'm guessing the pastry was rice based not wheat based, so the spring rolls were more like Vietnamese-style ones rather than the Chinese-style ones you more commonly get in the UK. I prefer the Vietnamese-style spring rolls, so I really enjoyed these.

I really like Vietnamese food in general so when I saw 'crepe au curcuma' - turmeric pancake in English or bánh xèo in Vietnamese - I didn't have to look any further down the menu.

Bánh xèo is normally made with rice flour, making it naturally gluten free, and it's thin and crispy, and served with different fillings and a dipping sauce. The version I got was thicker, more of a pancake - or a crepe, I guess (the clue was on the menu). Harmonie's version was stuffed with soya nuggets, fried tofu and beansprouts. The sauce for the crepe was on the plate, rather than on the side, so the pancake was a little damp by the time I finished eating it. I liked it, but didn't love it.

As Mr Flicking the Vs so often does, he chose the least exciting, but most delicious, dish on the menu. On our first night, he chose the vegetable curry, a 'traditional curry with grilled tofu, aubergine, spinach, carrot, onions, with organic brown rice'. You've probably eaten a million and one vegetable curries in your life, so if you see another on the menu, you might just pass it by in favour of, I don't know, the turmeric crepe. That would be a mistake, because this curry was delightful. Rich, creamy, with lots of layers of spice. Delicious.

The next day, we went back and, having tried some of Mr Flicking the Vs' vegetable curry the night before, I ordered a whole bowl to myself. Mr Flicking the Vs had a K-Bowl - brown rice, sweet potato, broccoli, grilled tofu and homemade kimchi in a shallot and Korean pepper sauce. It was really nice. I'd eat it again. But only if the vegetable curry was sold out when I got to the restaurant.

I was pretty full on both nights, so I never ended up ordering dessert, but there were lots of gluten free choices, from cheesecake to brownie to panna cotta and cookies. If I'm passing by Strasbourg again, I'd order myself some vegetable curry to share and then work my way through the whole dessert menu.

My other favourite find in Strasbourg was Eden Libre du Gluten, a bakery which is - you guessed it - entirely free from gluten. It's not a vegan place, but they do a surprisingly amount of vegan stuff. We ended up having a couple of lunches there, with some good sandwiches (hummus and salad one day, red pepper spread with veggies the next). It was perfect picnic food, and the gluten-free bread was really good. There was also a vegan bowl another day, with some salad, chick peas and a good thick creamy sauce - it managed to feel both healthy and satisfying at the same time.

Eden also a couple of really nice patisserie - I tried this vegan wonder, a big slab of chocolate mousse on a biscuit, all wrapped in chocolate and hazelnuts. It's really rich, so find a friend that loves chocolate and be prepared to share. Or just eat it all in one go on your own, that's good too.

We also stopped by a few times for breakfast, and there were a good amount of vegan pastries at Eden. Pretzels (or bretzels as they're known) are a traditional Strasbourgian food, so I was really pleased to see Eden had a choice of two vegan ones so I could enjoy the local delicacy. The salty, alkaline, savoury taste and chew of pretzels was just as good without gluten as with, so very much recommended.

There's also Eden's own take on the chausson de pommes (a French apple turnover), called a doumé pommes. It's just as good as the chausson you know, sweet and full of fruit.

There's also the Edeline - a brioche type roll with chocolate chips, which is just right with a good strong cup of coffee for a pick-me-up breakfast.

If you're planning to go to Eden, go early. It's really popular and if you go later on in the afternoon, a lot of the good stuff (by which I mean the vegan stuff!) will be sold out. It's also worth mentioning that you can also grab a vegan and gluten-free version of Strasbourg's local cake, the kougelhopf - a sort of bundt-like cake which comes in a few different variations. Eden has a couple you can try, and I took the chocolate chip one home. I've been eating it for breakfast, lightly toasted, and it's really good.

If you're in Strasbourg, you might well be spending some time in Colmar, a picture-perfect little town nearby. It's a beautiful place, but it doesn't have any vegan places (or gluten-free ones), so if you're going to Colmar, bring your own food. But do leave a little bit of room in your bag for a few treats and get yourself down to Ganache.

Ganache is a cute little chocolatier with a lot of vegan and gluten-free options to take away. I picked up some pain d'épices (literally spice bread) with a really warm gingerbread taste and a texture somewhere between cake and biscuit.

When it comes to vegan and gluten-free options, Strasbourg isn't quite Paris, but if you're looking for a long weekend in a beautiful city with good food, it's a great choice.

Eating vegan and gluten-free in Cologne: Here are my hits (and misses!)

2026-08-26T06:58:47.792-07:00

This summer was my first proper trip as a vegan with coeliac disease (and my who-knows-what-number trip as just your average vegan). Me and Mr Flicking the Vs decided to head to Germany and France so see how we'd fare. The German capital Berlin often makes the top 10 of world's most vegan friendly cities, so I had high hopes for vegan food while I was away, although finding vegan food that's also coeliac-compatible might be a bit more of a challenge.

For my coeliac friends, I heartily recommend checking out Isabella Gluten-Free Pâtisserie. It's 100 percent gluten-free (as you'd hope from the name!), and I reckon about one-third of the menu is vegan to boot. If you've avoiding gluten, it's got a great selection of breads, pastries, biscuits, cakes and tarts that are just as drool-worthy as their gluten-containing counterpart.

The chance to sit down for a big gluten-free, vegan breakfast was clearly too big of an opportunity to pass up, so I got happily stuck into the Isabella's vegan morning, the biggest, most vegan, most gluten-free thing I could find. Alongside your breakfast plate, there's a fresh bread basket, with three different types of bread - a soft white sandwich bread, a seeded roll, and a darker, wholemeal type slice. All that would be exciting enough for me, but the plate that goes with it is a simple joy too - some fruit, some roasted vegetables, vegan butter and jam, and three really good spreads. There's a very slightly spicy peanut butter with a hint of chilli, some beetroot hummus, and a spread that's a dupe for good herby cream cheese. I was in Cologne for three days, and I ate the vegan morning twice. My only regret was not making it three in a row.

You'd think that would be a big enough breakfast for most people, but I was not most people that day. When I walked in, I was greeted with this beautiful sight - an entire cabinet of mostly vegan tarts and cakes. I couldn't say no.

So I said yes instead, a very hearty yes to this strawberry tart. When I was a kid, we'd go on holiday to France and I'd see cakes like this in bakers' windows and think they were the fanciest cake I could imagine eating. I feel pretty fancy eating them now - crisp pastry, soft cream, picture perfect fruit. Highly recommended.

In between sitting down for breakfast and tarts, I popped into Isabella for some takeaway goodies too. I really enjoyed their macarons (about half of the range are vegan) which were delightfully crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside.

We took a few baked goods to a nearby park for an al fresco breakfast. Given how highly I rated the breads, the breakfast, the macarons and tarts, I was expecting great things from the baked goods. Alas, they didn't quite hit the same high notes as everything else - they were just pleasant rather than outstanding. My experience of gluten free baked goods is that they often taste great, but the texture can be a bit on the dense side, and these were exactly that. I loved the sweet blueberry muffins, but the ground almonds that help to give the bake structure also gave it a little bit of a grainy texture. I'd happily eat them again, I'd just reach for the other Isabella's goodies first.

Udum is an all-vegan Vietnamese place, with good reviews on the Find Me Gluten Free app (my new best friend, post coeliac diagnosis) and all allergens clearly marked on the menu.

Before I even got to consider food, I was delighted to see there was vegan Vietnamese coffee on the menu. I love Vietnamese coffee - condensed milk and sharp black coffee manages to be both a sharp slap to the face of a pick-me-up and a sweet comforting fluffy blanket of a drink in the same glass.

We got a couple of sides to go with our mains - the rather fetching Pinkladies (a rather cute name for a rather pink combo of tofu, mango, cucumber, pepper and herbs wrapped in brightly-coloured rice noodles with a limi chilli sauce), as well as the summer rolls with tofu and vegetables, with a peanut hoisin sauce. These sort of dishes are made for the summer heat - crisp, refreshing, with spiky sauces.

Mr Flicking the Vs and I both ended up picking bowls for dinner. I picked the UdumbaraBowl, of quinoa, chickpeas, tempeh, wakame, tomato and cucumber, with lots of what the menu called "cocktail sauce" but which I think might have been sriracha mayonnaise. The tempeh was my favourite element of the dish - I'm not sure how they cooked it, but it was in another galaxy of tastiness compared to my humble tempeh making efforts at home. I'd love to know Udum's tempeh secrets. The rest of the UdumbaraBowl was fine, but not massively exciting - just veggies and quinoa with the mayo-dressing doing the heavy lifting for flavour. I would have loved some herbs or a sharper dressing to lift it a little.

Mr Flicking the Vs' BuddhaBowl was much more fun - tofu, rice noodles, salad, fried onions, herbs and tomatoes, with a lime chilli sauce. If I were going back, I'd be ordering the BuddhaBowl. Alas, I won't - I had symptoms of having eaten gluten the next day, so I guess there was some cross contamination somewhere in the kitchen. It's always a risk in places that serve both gluten-containing and gluten-free food, so lesson learned there.

One thing I did find in Germany was that friteries are often a good bet when you're looking for food that's both vegan and gluten-free - and who doesn't love fried potatoes?

The fries from Frites Belgique are gluten free and they have a lot of clearly marked options for sauces. I went for the rather basic but very tasty curry ketchup and definitely enjoyed the skyscraper box everything came in!

Before I was diagnosed with coeliac, what I really wanted from a restaurant was that it was vegan, or as close to it as possible. Now, post-diagnosis, I try to eat out at restaurants that are entirely gluten-free or as close to it as possible, because that's what safest. Unfortunately, that means these days I'm eating in more restaurants that serve primarily non-vegan food than I ever have in the past. So, whenever I find a place that's both vegan and gluten-free, I make a real effort to visit.

Cafe Bauchgefühl is both gluten-free and vegan (hooray!), and it's a bit outside of the city centre, so hop on the metro or be prepared for a bit of a walk to get there.

It's a really nice little space, bright and open out to the pavement on sunny days. The menu is short and interesting - porridge with different toppings, savoury and sweet waffles (and even a waffle burger, where the bun is swapped with waffles), and a few other savoury choices like toasties and quiche. I had set my heart on waffles, but it was another 30C+ day, so I decided that quiche and salad sounded much more appealing.

Mr Flicking the Vs went for a kimcheeze toastie. Kimchi and cheese are a match made in heaven to me, and together on gluten-free buckwheat bread, they made a very tasty toastie. The pastry was savoury, heavy on the almonds. The roast veggies and creamy sauce was more a topping than a filling, and there wasn't quite enough of it to call it a quiche - tart would have been a better description.

What I really loved at Cafe Bauchgefühl was the iced coffee - a proper mess (I mean that in the most complimentary way) of coffee, cream and ice cream. I think it lasted all of five seconds. It was somewhere between an ice cream, a dessert and a cold drink, and somehow both refreshing and indulgent. Delicious.

For the non-gluten-dodging vegans out there, Cologen has LOADS of vegan options - I think there's somewhere between 10 and 15 exclusively vegan restaurants in Cologne, so you'll be spoilt for choice. As a gluten-avoider, I didn't have quite the same range of places to pick from, but I still really enjoyed my time in the city - I just wish I had more iced coffees and visits to Isabella's!

Paladar review: The vegan Latin American menu you need to know about - and it's all gluten free!

2026-08-05T08:24:15.297-07:00

Since finding out I have coeliac disease, I've been doing a lot of experimenting with food. Eating out feels like a whole journey of relearning. When I went vegan nearly 20 years ago, i had to learn how to navigate eating in restaurants, or with people that didn't eat the same way as me. We've come a long way in the last 20 years - vegan options are everywhere (at least in the UK) and it doesn't feel like a huge stress to go out for dinner any more. But vegan and coeliac? That's a bit harder.

I love finding vegan restaurants that are gluten free too, but when that's not an option, a gluten-free place that knows its way around a vegan menu can be a lifesaver. Paladar is 100 percent gluten free with a separate vegan menu. It's a Latin American place, it's friendly as hell, and it's got a great drinks list. The music's turned up, so if you've got something to celebrate, so much the better. If you're wandering south of the river and looking for a great vegan and gluten free meal, you've definitely found the right place.

The menu starts with a handful of vegan choices 'pa picar', or to nibble. There are a couple of familiar staples, deep fried spicy corns, plantain chips with guacamole, as well as some rarer treats - palm heart ceviche or black bean and sweet potato empanadas. On any other day, I would have been all over those empanadas like a wasp on a picnic but, knowing what the dessert menu holds, I passed and went straight to mains.

There are two vegan choices. The first, a rather tempting pulled jackfruit, guajjillo chilli sauce, corn tortillas, roasted habanero pineapple & chilli jam. I am a jackfruit agnostic, so I turned my hungry eyes to the second plate - roast aubergine, fried beans with salsa negra, and Maya hummus. If your first thought on reading that is 'hummus and vegetables? Is this 2005 all over again?' I can't really blame you. Happily, the description underwhelms to the same extent the dish overwhelms - a lot.

I love beans, but they're often the support act, aren't they? Just there in the background, making up the numbers, being a quietly-unappreciated protein powerhouse, sprinkling iron and fibre everywhere they go. I mean, they're great, but they rarely get top billing for their taste in the same way they do for their nutrition value. Beans that have passed through the hands of Paladar's cooks come out transformed into glorious smoky, spicy, velvety wonder. They're the sort of beans that you cram onto your fork and wave it in your fellow diners' face saying "YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS!" while secretly hoping they don't, so there's more for you. Sure, the aubergine was nice and soft and silky, and the Maya hummus was nice but the beans? Well, you have to try them.

Between the hummus, the beans and the aubergine, it's a very soft plate, and needs a bit of crunch carbs to balance things out. If you're wondering which of the sides to get, I'd say don't tax yourself with difficult decision - get the 'sides trio' so you can try three of them: rice, chimichurri fries and cassava chips. I love rice and I love fries (especially with a dusting of chimichurri herbs), but I really love cassava. Deep fried, it has that perfect crisp-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside texture. Sometimes cassava described as having a more nutty taste than an average potato, but to me it's just that bit more alkaline flavour. It's much starchier too, which gives it a satisfying chew compared to the humble spud. I found myself bouncing between the deep fried goodness of the sides trio to the beans and back again.

Having demolished all of the above, I was finally able to look at the dessert menu and the one thing I'd had my eye on all day - vegan churros! There are two sauce available with the churros, and you need to know which one to pick: coffee dulce de leche, which isn't vegan, and chocolate and ancho chill, which is. I had stupidly agreed to share a portion, so I got two rather than a whole portion of four, but I'm glad to report that they were everything you'd want from churros - hot, crispy, slightly sweet, and a perfect vehicle for conveying an abundance of spicy chocolate into your mouth.

One note on the churros though - they're purple corn rather than the traditional yellow, so when they turn up on a red plate, they do have something delightfully meal-the-aliens-in-Star-Trek-eat about them.

The vegan menu helpfully points out which dessert wines and cocktails are vegan too, so if you'd rather have a liquid dessert, there's that option too, but I'd suggest if you're that way inclined, have a drink as well as churros rather than instead of, because churros make everything better.

I'm already planning my next visit to Paladar and this time I definitely won't be sharing.

Paladar

paladarlondon.com

4-5 London Rd, London SE1 6JZ

020 7186 5555

Brighton's best Mexican joint is gluten-free and vegan-friendly

2026-07-07T13:14:49.833-07:00

After getting diagnosed with coeliac disease earlier this year, I've been on a quest to find the best places that serve gluten-free, vegan food. I've been poring over Google Maps, Happy Cow, and Find Me Gluten Free to triangulate where I can find a good meal. It turns out that one of those elusive restaurants was right on my doorstep. I'd even been there before, without knowing it was entirely gluten-free.

Casazul is a Mexican place in Brighton's Open Market. It's got a few tables inside, and a few more outside for when the sun's shining on the seaside. Service is fast and friendly, and the prices are pretty decent for central Brighton.

The menu is pretty short, made up of a handful of taco choices, which are neatly divided into half vegan, half non-vegan: tinga, cochinita, mole, colorado and el pastor. The vegan tacos' filling are either carrots (tinga), mushrooms (cochinita, colorado) or cauliflower (al pastor, mole). For a plate of three tacos, you're looking at about £12-£13.

I've been to Casazul a handful of times, and I've got a different taco each time. Clearly, I must like the food to keep coming back.

The tacos the sort of tasty, sloppy meal that leaves you with sauce running down your arm, while you nod enthusiastically at your dinner companion - you would talk, but you'd rather be eating, because the

tacos are great.

And there's good news for those that get overwhelmed by decisions - there's one side on the menu. It's a portion of rice and refried beans. Rice and beans together is a vegan classic - I've eaten it all over the world, and I make it at home regularly. Add some to your Casazul tacos, and you're turning your dainty tacos into a proper meal. And at just over £3, it feels like a bit of a steal.

All of the tacos have a lot of spicing, but not a lot of heat. If you're a heat fiend, you might find some of the tacos a bit on the mild side (well, the ones I've tried anyway). But if you want to boost the spiciness, you'll be offered hot sauce on the side. You can pick either medium or hot - and the hot is definitely hot.
The fillings all seem to have a similar texture across each of the tacos, of uniformly minced veggies. I would love to see the oyster mushrooms used in more of pulled-meat texture, or the cauliflower to be roasted for more of a substantial consistency. But I'm nit picking here though, the food's good whichever way you slice (chew?) it.

There are also lots of fun drink choices - agua de Jamaica, a deep pinky-purple refreshing hibiscus drink; Jarritos - brightly-coloured Mexican sodas - in a range of flavours, and even vegan horchata.

Desserts are more on the minimalist side, with a choice of homemade ice lolly flavours, most of which are vegan. I definitely recommend the horchata - it's creamy with little bit of comforting cinnamon in there, but still refreshing enough for a hot day. Very good.

Definitely worth checking out for a satisfying lunch, whether you're dodging gluten or not.

Vegan AND gluten-free in Borough Market? It can be done - here's how

2026-06-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Borough Market is one of London's foodie hubs - a huge open-air market with stalls selling meals from across the globe, fancy ingredients for home cooks, and grab-and-go treats for tourists that have come across the seas and office workers that have come from a couple of streets away. It's a fun way to spend a few hours wandering around and trying everything (if you're happy to navigate the crowds - it can be really busy, particularly over lunchtimes and at the weekends).

I went to Borough Market recently after meeting some non-vegan friends for brunch at Mallow. I last went to Mallow a couple of years back when I could still eat gluten, and really liked the food there. (For those who don't know Mallow, it's a sort of upmarket vegan place, and part of the same chain as Mildreds. For those who don't know Mildreds, it's a small chain of vegan restaurants in London that's been around for decades and serves a world-food type menu).

My non-vegan friends loved the vegan food at Mallow. Alas, I didn't get to try any of it, as there weren't any dishes that were marked on the menu as not containing gluten, apart from things that looked like they were cooked in the same fryer as gluten-containing things - and I didn't want to take my chances. So, my friends had a lovely brunch, I had a bellini and an empty stomach. But, after my sadly liquid brunch, I headed into the market to find some good, gluten-free food.

If you're vegan, there's no shortage of great food to check out at Borough Market. If you're vegan and gluten-free, it's a little bit harder, but you can still eat really well.

My first stop was Tacos Padre - as you've probably guessed, it's a stall which sells tacos, but what you might not have guess is that it's almost entirely gluten-free.

Alas, it's not vegan, but the vegan choices they do are delicious. When I went there were three vegan choices: smoked celeriac with orange habanero glaze, charred cauliflower with salsa macha, and crispy potato with salsa verde. They all sounded amazing, so I grabbed a couple - the cauliflower and the potato.

One of the difficulties with Borough Market is that there's not a lot of places to actually sit down and eat whatever food you've bought, so stood up next to the stall and ate my tacos like a goblin. They didn't last long - not only because they were tasty, but because they were tiny too. Which made them a great starter for my three-course Borough Market lunch, but you'll need quite a few to make a full meal (or maybe I'm just inventing an excuse here to eat more tacos).

If Tacos Padre was my starter, I headed over to Horn OK Please for my main course. Luckily, Tacos Padre and Horn OK Please are next to each other so it wasn't a long journey!

Horn OK Please (named after the message you often see on the back of vehicles in India, which means 'honk your horn if you're overtaking) sells a small-but-perfectly formed menu of vegetarian Indian street food, most of which is vegan or can be made vegan, and the same for gluten free. I love masala potatoes, I love dosas, so I didn't need any excuse to order a dosa with masala potatoes.

This was one of the vegan dosa options - a soft crepe, comfortingly-spiced potatoes, crunchy sev. For £10 for a plate, it feels like a good deal in a part of London that really isn't known for bargains.

After my two course Borough Market lunch, I wasn't hungry, but I still went looking for dessert, because I love dessert - if I was in charge of menus, I'd put dessert first so there's no chance I'd have to skip it because I was too full.

I hit up Free From Bakehouse - a bakery that caters to various allergies and dietary preferences, including soy-free, nut-free, vegan and gluten-free, and luckily for me, even does sweet treats that are both vegan and gluten free at the same time.

Given I was too full for dessert at the market, I took a few treats home with me - a bakewell tart and a slab of cookies and cream cake. Getting good cake that's vegan and properly gluten-free can be a slog at the best of times, so finding Free From Bakehouse felt like stumbling on an oasis after you've been wandering around the desert for too long. Or finding a dessert after you've been wandering around Borough Market for too long!

Having recently had to switch to a fully gluten free diet (thanks coeliac disease), there's no getting away from the fact that gluten-free cakes do not taste the same, or have the same texture as gluten-containing cakes. They can be drier, chalkier, crumblier (at least in my experience). The Free From Bakehouse cakes managed to side step all of these pitfalls, and turned out suitably moist and luxurious. I know this, because I had them both for breakfast the next day. No regrets.

Borough Market

boroughmarket.org.uk

8 Southwark Street, London, SE1 1TL

0207 407 1002

Vegan, gluten free, delicious: Everything I ate at the Free From Festival from patisserie to arepas

2026-05-25T07:58:14.793-07:00

Since getting a diagnosis of coeliac disease, food has become a lot more problematic. Cooking without gluten-containing foods is actually fine as a vegan, but going out to eat has become a lot more work - it means a whole lot of questions have to be asked before I can be convinced the food is OK for me to eat. Is that gluten free, or just low gluten? Is it prepared on separate equipment? Is there a different frier? It feels like a lot of effort, so when there's a change to eat food at a properly, entirely gluten free place, I'll grab it with both hands. And what's the only thing better than a gluten free restaurant? A load of them in one place!

Earlier this month, I got to go to the Free From Festival in London - a whole weekend of entirely gluten and dairy free food. Alas, there are still stalls selling products with meat and eggs, but I'd say upwards of two-thirds of the food there was vegan, so I ate well.

One of the things I really miss since ditching gluten is dumplings! Ugly Dumpling has three restaurants in London which sell both gluten-containing and gluten-free dumplings. There's a separate gluten-free menu with enough vegan choices to make a full meal.

The stall at the Free From Fesitval had three vegan choices - I restrained myself to choosing the spinach and tofu dumplings, knowing I had a lot of eating ahead. Technically chilli oil is optional, but who doesn't want chilli oil?

The pastry was a bit thicker than I was expecting - it felt more like what you'd expect from Eastern European dumplings rather than Asian ones - but the filling was ample and they tasted great, so I was very happy to find delicious dumplings I could enjoy.

I made a beeline for Cream Dream, because how often do you find a vegan, gluten-free patisserie? I've visited them in London, and I've ordered postal pastries from them more than once, so I knew I was in for some good eating.

I ordered a Paris Brest, because I've never eaten one before (let alone a vegan and gluten free one) so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. It was sweet, light, crispy pastry and generous cream filling. Did I need to eat the whole thing in one go? No. Did I feel really stuff after doing it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat.

I took an almond croissant and a cinnamon bun home to eat later. I can't tell you about the cinnamon bun, because it disappeared in Mr Flicking the Vs' face but the speed at which it did so speaks well of its tastiness. The almond croissant was life-changingly good and I'm very grateful you can buy them from the Cream Dream site, because otherwise I'd be bankrupting myself to get the train to London for my pastry fix.

I stopped by Creamberry Artisan later that day, because I'd seen on their Insta they sold tiramisu, which I think would be the dessert on my 'what's your last meal on earth?' menu. It's no surprise then that I really enjoyed the tiramisu, but I picked up a slice of Basque cheesecake and LOVED it - not sure how it managed to daintily pirouette along the fine line between rich and light, but it did. Creamberry Artisan also do postal treats - not everything is vegan, but the vegan choices I have tried were great.

The day of the Free From Festival was pretty much the hottest day of the year - the temperatures were over 30 degrees. Happily, Doughlicious had brought along three flavours of vegan ice cream in the form of their gelato bites - ice cream in gluten free cookie crumbs. I tried them all - vanilla, chocolate truffle and mint choc chip. Mint chocolate won hands down for me.

I also ventured over to see Poets Bakery to add to my rapidly-growing bakery products stash - there were so many really good vegan options, I had to sit and have a good think about what to take home with me, paralysed as I was by choice. I settled on a tiramisu muffin (you already know how I feel about tiramisu) and an apricot bakewell tart, because bakewell tarts are not far behind tiramisu on my list of desserts that would make it onto my last-meal list. Poets Bakery also do postal delivery and, best of all, they do a pick and mix option, so you can choose all your favourite vegan bakes for a bespoke box. Just don’t expect there to be any bakewell tarts left, because I'll have ordered them all.

Not all of my bakery stall visits were for sweet treats - I hit up Beaky Blinders (yep, like the TV series, but with a B) for some savouries too. I haven't had a sausage roll since finding out I was coeliac, so I fell on their pastries like a person lost in the desert falls on an oasis. They were so good. Would you know the pastry was gluten free? Yep. Would that be a problem? Nope - I fed some to a non-vegan, non-gluten-free friend, and they were highly complimentary. I can't wait to order these again too. (this whole post is reminding me how grateful I am to be able to get such beauteous things delivered by post!)

At this point, I was pretty laden with goodies, and ready to head home. But I decided to have one last treat - a vegan arepa, from Arepas and Cachapas. Arepas are naturally gluten free and vegan, and the choice of toppings is up to you - I went plantain, black beans and avocado, which are some of my favourite things in the world.

If you're in need of coeliac-friendly, dairy-free and/or vegan treats, and you missed this year's London Free From Festival, don't worry - there are Birmingham and Manchester dates planned for later this year. I'll see you there.

Here's where to get the best vegan and gluten-free cakes, brownies, croissants and scones delivered to you by post

2026-04-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

If you thought you'd been noticing a few more posts mentioning gluten free food on this blog recently, you're not wrong. If you're a vegan, you might have raised an eyebrow - I think a lot of vegans have gone to restaurants and told the server they're vegan, only be offered gluten free food because someone thinks vegan and gluten-free food are the same thing, or because they think people who eat vegan food are hardcore health nuts and gluten-free food is healthy too. So why the gluten-free posts?

I've recently found out that I have coeliac disease - that means no gluten, ever. When I was diagnosed, a couple of (non-vegan) friends said they expected me to, or thought I should, stop being vegan. That was never something that crossed my mind.

If anything, I think being a vegan makes being coeliac easier - there's a lot of skills that I learned being a vegan that I can deploy for being coeliac too. I'm really good at reading labels and I can spot ingredients I won't eat in milliseconds. I'm used to finding the best restaurants that will serve food that suits my dietary requirements when I go somewhere new. And I'm pretty good at having awkward conversations about what I do and don't eat with servers at restaurants, and not feeling embarrassed about it.

When I was diagnosed, my first thoughts were around 'where can I get vegan and gluten-free cake?' For all the reasons mentioned above, I've eaten a good few gluten free desserts, and they've not always been amazing. Luckily, I've found some great places that do not just great vegan cake, or great vegan and gluten-free cake, but just great cake all round. Here are some of my recommendations.

Monty and Vito's Diner

Monty and Vito's Diner is a bricks-and-mortar American diner in Barry, Wales where everything is gluten free and vegan. If you're not near Barry (like me) there's postal delivery too. I've ordered from Monty and Vito's a few times, and I've been blown away by just how good everything I ordered was.

Once I heard that I couldn't eat gluten again, my mind went straight to all the glorious baked goods I would never have again, from the everyday to the rare treat. When I found Monty and Vito's, I pretty much breathed a sigh of relief, because they seemed to have everything I dreamt was beyond my reach. Case in point: croissants

Monty and Vito's does plain and - be still my patisserie-loving heart - almond croissants. Both are great - crispy, flaky, slightly sweet. Monty and Vito's does gluten-free crumpets too, which are, in my humble opinion, pretty indistinguishable from the gluten-containing versions and heavenly to eat.

Monty and Vito's also does themed boxes - Christmas, Easter, that sort of thing - where you get a selection of delicious baked items in one go. These were a few of the delights in the Mother's Day box - fondant fancies, mini Battenbergs, shortbread, white chocolate truffles and Viennese whirls. All of them were incredibly good.

In summary, I love everything about Monty and Vito's and couldn't recommend them more. If you're vegan and gluten-free, or even if you're not, you need to hit these guys up.

Orders over Instagram and Facebook DM.

Veg Oot

Once a month, you have a chance to order a postal treat box from Scottish gluten-free vegan bakery. You should definitely do that, because those treat boxes sell out and if you need a gluten-free and vegan box of goodness, this is a great shout.

Here's the sight that greeted me when I opened up the recent Easter treat box:

If only I was a better photographer, you'd be able to see how glorious those macarons were - there were tiny, almost too cute to eat, bunny and chick macarons in the box. Almost too cute to eat, but too tasty to not eat, of course.

Alongside the flawless macarons were a bunch of other baked treats - a millionaire's slice (beautifully gooey caramel), a wagon wheel type biscuit that was way better than the original version I remember from childhood, a slab of chocolate and mini-egg fudge that I kept trying to put down and couldn't, a beautiful shortbread heart with a creamy filling, Battenberg slice (how I love thee, let me count the ways!) and the iconically named 'Cream egg rocky road crispie thingy' (Veg Oot's name, not mine!)

Boxes and other baked goods are available via the Veg Oot site and you can get news of website restocks and in person appearances, on Veg Oot's instagram.

Positive Bakes

Positive Bakes is another all-vegan, all-gluten-free bakery that caught my eye for selling afternoon teas by post. Who doesn't want to get home from work and eat their way through an eye-watering amount of cakes, brownies and scones?

Image: Positive Bakes

I ordered an afternoon tea for two (yes, I did share. Well, some of it) and couldn't eat everything at once, so I froze a few things, and I'm happy to report they were just as good defrosted as fresh.

I particularly enjoyed the Bakewell cake, because I'm a sucker for all things Bakewell, and thought the brownies were top-notch, even though I'm very much not a sucker for brownies.

I really did enjoy the scones - check out the chunkyness of this lad below, with all the appropriate jam and cream (no, I don't know which way they should go on either).

The jam pot that came with the afternoon tea box was one of those tiny pots that you get at hotel breakfasts, but the vegan clotted cream was great and there was more than enough for the scones.

My only regret with the Positive Bakes afternoon tea was that I didn't make a bunch of cucumber sandwiches and bust out a three-tiered cake stand to do justice to the afternoon tea glory.

Boxes and other goodies are available to order on their website. You can also often get deals on Positive Bakes boxes via Red Letter Days and Yumbles.

Where to find a vegan and gluten free afternoon tea (hint: it's in Brighton)

2026-03-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

If I won an obscene amount of money on the lottery, there are a few things I would do. I'd hire a tailor, to make me sharp suits, a PA to sort out all of the life admin that eats up my days, and a private chef, who would be on standby to make me afternoon tea whenever my heart desired.

Until I win the lottery, I guess I'll have to find my afternoon teas elsewhere. As a vegan with coeliac disease, finding an afternoon tea that suits has been something of a white whale for me. Luckily, I hit the jackpot when I found out that Terre a Terre in Brighton does a vegan, gluten-free afternoon tea every week from Wednesday to Sunday. If you check out the afternoon tea menu, you can see a vegan, and a gluten free, option, but not a vegan, gluten free option. But when I rang and asked if it was possible to have an afternoon tea that was both, I was assured it was.

The afternoon tea comes with a plate of savouries, and a classic three-tiered stand of sweet treats, pictured below. If you're looking at the cake stand and thinking, 'that look like a lot of food, I don't know if I'd be able to eat all that', know that I thought the same. But it was so good, I finished the lot.

We attacked the middle tier first - the orange and almond polenta cake with clementine sorbet and pomegranate molasses, pink peppered meringue, orange gel, candied orange and caramel almond. Making a good polenta cake I think can be a work of art - getting a flavour that works with the corn and a texture that isn't dense is no mean feat. This was a deft little muffin, and the clementine sorbet cut through the sweet with citrus sharpness. Loved the meringue for a textural foil to the softness of both.

The top tier was I think my favourite, though it was a chocolate hazelnut truffle cake and praline served with a whipped dark chocolate mousse. The cake was rich, dense and dark - the sort of dessert that makes you sit up a little bit straighter in your chair, rearrange your hair, and feel a bit more sophisticated for having eaten it. And if you're in need of more chocolate after that, there's a 'Razza Jazza' chocolate orange truffle for good measure. Like the clementine sorbet in the tier below, the mini Brandy Alexander milkshake was a welcome refreshing note to cut through the richness.

The bottom tier are the scones - the tier on which all afternoon teas stand or fall. I was pleased with these lads - just the right side of heavy, lots of fruit. These come with vegan clotted cream and strawberry jam, in the classic style - proof some classics are classics for a reason!

And the savoury tier? That took all the classic afternoon tea staples and threw them out the window, and then stamped on them for good measure. No sandwiches here - instead there's this glorious assortment:

Along with a heap of homemade seaweed rice crackers that gave a heavenly crunch and umami, the plate came with Jaipur Jonny Brinjal - coconut maize chaat-spiced fritter served on Bengal butter-baked aubergine and hot mango-lime chutney, with coconut yogurt and crunchy chilli-flaked coconut

almond clusters. On the other side, sushi rice with tempura oyster mushrooms. (For those wondering, there's a gluten free fryer!) Who wants sandwiches? Bring me battered oyster mushrooms, meltingly soft aubergine, crisp seaweed every day.

I might not have won the lottery yet, but finding a gluten-free, vegan afternoon tea as good as this felt a bit like it. And with my distinctly non-lottery-winner's budget, for food this tasty, £33 this feels like a bit of a steal.

Terre a Terre

terreaterre.co.uk

71 East Street, Brighton, BN1 1HQ

mail@terreaterre.co.uk

01273 729051

Two places to check out for great vegan food in Lille (gluten free options too!)

2026-03-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

After giving up flying a few years back, I've travelled on the Eurostar more times than I'd like to count. I've got off the train in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels - but never in Lille. So, with a few days holiday left for the year, me and Mr Flicking the Vs thought we'd spend a long weekend there.

We managed breakfast and lunches from the local supermarkets - bread, fruit, nuts, and dips - and managed to eat quite well. We saved our eating out for the evenings, and here are the two places we enjoyed most.

Albedo Kitchen

albedokitchen.fr

222 Rue Léon Gambetta, 59000 Lille, France

+33 6 72 25 53 32

Albedo Kitchen is a super friendly, super tasty place in Lille's Wazemmes district. That means it's a bit of a walk (or a short hop on the metro) from the centre of Lille, but it's most definitely worth the trip. As well as serving up banging food, they also do live music and host art exhibitions (check their social media for what's on). It's the sort of place where you feel like you're eating in someone's living room, in the best way.

But what about the food? It's all vegan, and as far as I can tell, pretty much all gluten-free as well.

On my first visit, I got the braised tofu and cashew nuts, with steamed cruciferous vegetables, and a sauce of miso and dried tomatoes.

The next visit I tried the green lentil dahl with seasonal vegetables with Camargue red rice and cashew and coconut cream. It was a really mild, comforting dish, but there was a little pot of chilli powder on the table for optional extra spice.

We got dessert on both occasions - truffles one time, a chestnut muffin the next time. We shared some coffee and natural wine, and considered ourselves very well fed.

Albedo Kitchen's describes its food as living or healing food - as organic and as local as possible, cooked simply. We went there twice during our trip, and I can confirm that it's the sort of food that makes you feel good having eaten it and the sort of place that makes you feel good while you do.

La Clairière

laclairiere-restaurant.com

75 Bd de la Liberté, 59000 Lille, France

+33 3 20 11 23 16

If you're planning on heading to the La Clairière, there's something you really need to know before you go - it really helps to like dogs. The restaurant plays host to dogs awaiting adoption, so when you step through the door, you'll be greeted (very enthusiastically) by one of them. They roam freely in the restaurant too, so they may come and check on you during your meal. I really enjoyed the dogs, but if you're not a fan, this might not be somewhere you're going to enjoy.

Onto the restaurant itself. There's a small menu that changes weekly, as well as a brunch on weekends. There are gluten free options for starters, mains and desserts, and the brunch can be made gluten free, but you'll need to let them know in advance.

On our visit, I chose the gluten free curry, with chick peas and spinach, because spinach, chick peas, and curry are some of my favourite things. There's some turmeric rice on the side too. As an avid curry fan, I wouldn't have minded a bit more spice, but I very much enjoyed it nonetheless. Definitely worth a stop if you're in Lille.

I finally got to Cream Dream, London's Ukrainian vegan cafe - here's how it went

2026-02-21T03:49:00.000-08:00

Eating fancy vegan, gluten free desserts is pretty much everything I want from life. That, and enough tea to sink a battleship, and I could be happy for eternity. So, when whatever algorithm is in charge of my social media started serving up images - beautiful, pink hued images - of Covent Garden's Cream Dream patisserie and cafe, I decided I'd stop by next time I was in the area.

There were lots of things that made me want to haul myself to Cream Dream, beyond the power of my socials' feeds. One, it's all vegan. Two, there's loads of gluten free choices. Three, it's Ukrainian owned and there's lots of Ukrainian food on the menu. Four, it's a really pretty little space (even if you're normally someone that doesn't vibe with wall-to-wall pink).

Since becoming a gluten dodger (not by choice), my chances to eat vegan patisserie have radically diminished (imagine there's some sad string music playing in the background here), so any visit to Cream Dream was going to involve hitting the pastry counter hard.

The prices might seem high, but when you see the artistry that goes into making the pastries, it doesn't feel like they're excessive.

Check out the snickers eclair and pear pecan with figs below:

The Snickers eclair is, as you'd guess, a patisserie take on the well known chocolate bar: an eclair filled with chocolate cream, salty peanut caramel, and crunchy caramelised organic peanuts, with a chocolate shell.

The pear-pecan with figs had two parts: the realistic pear on top, filled with pear mousse and figs, and finished with a quince and saffron glaze. Underneath, there's a chocolate tart with pecan praline cream and a earl grey biscuit.

Having been a relatively recent adopter of a gluten free diet, you can usually tell gluten free pastry because it's a bit more dense and heavy than the gluten version. So, if you're not used to that, the texture might be a bit new and different. But the flavours are just what you'd expect - absolutely delicious and thoroughly luxurious, as if you had any doubt! - and the cakes and tarts are just beyond beautiful to look at, not to mention incredibly fun.

Cream Dream's savoury dishes don't get as much attention on social media as they rightfully should, so let me show you the lunch I had before I got heavily involved in the cakes above.

This was my plate of varenyky:

Varenyky are, so Wikipedia tells me, traditional Ukranian dumplings made from unleavened dough and with either sweet or savoury fillings. These fellas were made potato and mushroom, and served with crispy onions and vegan sour cream. Cream Dream sell both gluten-containing and non-gluten versions, so everyone can get involved.

I've never eat varenyky before, but they felt like pierogi's more hulking cousins: great, comforting parcels that are meant to see you through the harshest of winters.

Mr Flicking the Vs went for a plate of poltava pumpkin soup. Soup normally prompts a shrug from me - it's fine, but it doesn't set my world alight, but this bowl was great. I absolutely would order this next time I visit, were it not for all the other exciting things that are on the menu. It's rammed full of Ukrainian classics made vegan - if you want to try a good sample of what's on offer, there's a Ukrainian set of borscht and bread, a choice of varenyky, cabbage rolls and uzvar, a drink made from stewed fruit. How good does that sound?

Cream Dream

creamdream.uk

46 Bedford St, London WC2E 9HA

07904 195797

Vegan in Marseille: Where to get great plant-based food in the city (+ gluten free options!)

2026-02-07T06:43:00.000-08:00

I decided to go to Marseille on a bit of a whim, not really having done much research and having heard a lot of opinions - both positive and negative - about the city. If you're thinking of doing the same, I'd like to add my voice to the positive camp - I really enjoyed my time in Marseille and would happily go back. I could tell you about all the fun stuff we managed to cram in during our long weekend, but what you really want to know about is the vegan food, right? I'm here to be pretty positive about that too.

Hododa

hododa.com

15 Rue de l'Évêché, 13002 Marseille, France

+33491310963

Le Panier is the oldest part of Marseille, a district of narrow streets, workshops, graffiti murals, and cafes that's well worth a few hours of wandering through.

If you need to get food while you're there, might I suggest Hododa? It's all vegan, and with staff that are very clued up on the plentiful gluten free options.

We went in the evening, when Hododa was serving a mezze style menu. We were advised to choose four dishes, with bread (gluten free available), and left well and truly full.

First, look how pretty everything is - as colourful as it is plentiful. We chose the tofu brochettes and the celeriac schwarma. As a vegan, loving tofu is in my DNA and so I couldn't help but love these - as much because they were tasty as because there were enough tofu there to stop a truck. Celeriac, well, I can take or leave it normally. But surprisingly, the schwarma was the highlight of the meal for me - the celeriac had become beautifully spicy strips of gorgeousness.

Our other dishes were fondues served in these Lilliputian pumpkins, and these spicy potatoes which, if I remember right, were modelled after batata harra? I loved both - spooning out cheesy sauce until the well ran dry, and then spooning out the pumpkin flesh. The batata harra wasn't the version I'm used to - there was a creamy element that I don't normally encounter in the dish - but they were all kinds of good.

I couldn't find fault with this place - definitely get yourself down there next time you're in Marseille.

Mariposas

102 Cr Julien, 13006 Marseille, France

reservation.laddition.com/booking/mariposas

+33626556192

Mariposas is another all-vegan restaurant. If you're in the mood for a bit of Marseille's hipster side, its location on Cour Julien will see you right.

The restaurant's menu doesn't say which of the dishes are gluten-free, but they have options and the staff can point them out to you if you ask.

Mariposas' menu changes frequently, and it's not posted online, so unfortunately I don't have the name of the dish I ordered and I can't really remember much about it, alas. There was mash, roast carrots, pickled cauliflower, and some form of greens (kale maybe?) that had been coated with something that called to mind stuffing - the sort of thing you might get next to your Sunday roast.

I liked it, but I didn't love it, alas. The mash was a little too plain and a touch gluey, which meant it washed away some of the more interesting flavours - the spiky vinegared cauliflower and the stuffing-flavoured greens got lost in the background. It also felt like it was missing some more protein-y element - a chunk of tofu, some lentils maybe? - to bring it together.

I asked if they had a gluten-free dessert, and the kitchen very kindly made me up a plate - raspberry sorbet and chocolate ganache that went very happily together.

Oh Faon!

ohfaon.com

6 Rue Edmond Rostand, 13006 Marseille, France

+33491587482

Visiting Marseille was my first time trying to travel as both a vegan and someone who doesn't eat gluten (the former very much by choice, the latter very much not) and finding Oh Faon must have been like what a someone dying of thirst in a desert feels like when they see an oasis. Oh Faon is all vegan, probably about two-thirds gluten free patisserie that you definitely need to add to your list of places to check out when you're in Marseille. Well, add both of them to your list - there are in fact two Oh Faons in Marseille, one a couple of doors down from the other. One is a cafe that sells its whole range of products and where you can sit down and enjoy your pastries, and the other is a biscuit shop that sells incredible boxes of vegan, gluten-free biscuits for you to take away. I highly recommend both.

Alas, none of the pastries are gluten free, so I can't tell you how good they were (Mr Flicking the Vs was waxing lyrical, so it sounds like you won't be disappointed if you get a big plate of them), but I did try some of the tartes, and they were beyond delicious.

The first pic is of Oh Faon's signature tarte, the Balade en Garrigue, with a rosemary mousse, pine nuts, almond cream and a sable base. The second picture is the Pecan Bueno, with a vanilla mousse, pecan praline, caramel, and sable biscuit base.

I'm not quite sure how they pulled off the textures as well as the taste - the mousses were feather-lite, the biscuits snapped perfectly under the spoon. We went twice during our few days in Marseille and I took a huge box of biscuits home with me so I could enjoy Oh Faon once I was back home.

John Silver Original Bistroffee

6 Rue Neuve Sainte-Catherine, 13007 Marseille, France

+33486682959

If you heard of a place called John Silver Original Bistroffee, and then you heard it was all vegan, you'd want to get there as soon as possible, right? Yes you would. And you'd be right to do so. John Silver Original Bistroffee (or John Silver as it will be known from here on in, to save my poor fingers from typing that whole long name each time) is a really great little place. It's down a tiny, unassuming side road, and has a tiny, unassuming entrance door, but if you see it, make sure you go in for lunch. The food is decent, and it's such a friendly little place, I couldn't help but really enjoy myself.

The menu has gluten-free options clearly marked, but does note that gluten-free food might still contain traces, so it's not suitable for coeliacs. Do with that information what you will.

I went for the assiette de John complète (John's complete plate) - basmati rice and quinoa, caponata, scrambled tofu, cashew and cauliflower creme, salad, marinated tomatoes, and pickles. It was a cold meal, which caught me a bit off guard - I'm used to scrambled tofu only as a hot dish - but other that than that, it was a tasty plate.

Mr Flicking the Vs had a chilli bowl, and was similarly pleased with his choices. A footnote on the food: this isn't a high end place, it's more like being invite round to your mate's house and they've cooked up a homely vegan meal. The guy behind the counter - who was doing the serving, cooking, and everything else that needed doing - was incredibly friendly and up for a chat, which gave it even more of the 'going round your mate's house' vibe in the best possible way.

On my bingo card of things I didn't expect to see in Marseille: a vegan, gluten free, pumpkin spice lamington. I'm not sure any passing Aussies would see much resemblance between an Australian lamington and what was presented here, but authenticity aside, it was a big fun slab of sponge with enough sauce to sink a ship.

And for absolutely no reason after we'd finished our very enjoyable meal, the guy behind the counter busted out some crème de menthe and poured us a glass on the house. Fun and highly recommended.

Vegan in Montpellier: A beautiful city with so many great places for plant-based meals (and gluten-free options too!)

2026-01-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

If you're planning a holiday in France, maybe putting together an itinerary that takes you across the south of France, can I recommend Montpellier? It's a lovely city to spend a few days in - there are enough sights and activities to keep you busy for a long weekend, or come without a plan and just get lost in the gorgeous streets around the city centre.

One of my favourite things to do in Montpellier though is eat! It's a smallish city but it punches way above its weight for great vegan food, with lots of gluten-free options to boot. For our last visit, we were there for three days didn't get round to eating at all the vegan options in the city. I guess there's means I'll just have to come back again!

Here are all the places I got to enjoy in Montpellier.

Joy Healthyfood

Joy Healthyfood is an entirely vegan, entirely gluten-free cafe - vegan coeliacs rejoice, this one's for you! There's a very small but perfectly formed menu, great for a very relaxed breakfast or lunch, and it's part of a yoga studio so it's got some calming vibes going on. The service is friendly too, so there's a lot to like already.

But onto the food. Here are the buckwheat waffles with banana, whipped vegan cream and a pot of chocolate sauce to dunk the whole lot in.

In the background, you can make out a stack of pancakes, which was what I tried on the second visit because the waffles had already run out (whoever had come in before me had made some great choices, clearly!). The pancakes were a tiny bit on the gummy side but the waffles were absolutely great and felt incredibly indulgent for a lazy breakfast or brunch. There are lots of smoothies and fancy coffees to wash it all down with too and, if you come later in the day, there are savoury dishes as well, including very appealing looking open sandwiches, tarts and salads. Definitely one to try when you're in Montpellier.

Joy Healthyfood

joy-yoga-healthyfood.fr

55 Rue Estelle, 34000 Montpellier, France

Les Desmoiselles de Montpellier

Les Demoiselles de Montpellier is the sort of place that makes you glad of a sunny day in the city. The cafe is a lovely airy place to spend your lunchtime, but on a sunny day, you can sit outside and watch the world go by.

Les Demoiselles de Montpellier is open for lunch all week and brunch on a Saturday - think nourishing bowls, open sandwiches, pancakes and French toast. But the real reason to go to Les Demoiselles de Montpellier is for the cakes.

There are comforting slices of cake, fancy gateaux, cookies to nibble on, and lots of other sweet treats. It's all vegan and gluten free as well, so vegans with gluten intolerances get to feast too.

This was the chestnut cake I got to enjoy - it's a flavour I love and was so happy to see it on the menu. I can't think of much I'd rather do than settle in at Les Demoiselles de Montpellier with a big slice of cake, a strong coffee, and a book, and pass a very happy hour or two.

Les Demoiselles de Montpellier

lesdemoisellesdemontpellier.fr

2 Rue de la Carbonnerie, 34000 Montpellier, France

+33 4 99 65 56 43

Vegorilla (formerly Green Gorilla)

Vegorilla - which used to be called Green Gorilla, in case your search results are a bit confusing - is the sort of burger place that all burger places should aspire to be. Let me show you my working out for how I came to this conclusion.

Firstly, the food is all vegan.

Secondly, the food is all delicious. The menu is just a few different burgers, with the odd seasonal special, along with all the sides you'd like to see - fries (sweet potato and standard), nuggets, all the good stuff. And there a few interesting desserts if you need one, but I was too full to need one (a rarity, I promise!).

Thirdly, there are gluten free options and the staff were both knowledgable and accommodating! This was my gluten-free Green Burger - a burger patty along with vegan cheese, caramelised onions, rocket, mushrooms and gherkins. A great big sloppy mess of a burger and very, very good. Just make sure you've got some spare serviettes when you tuck in.

Fourthly, the staff are lovely (see above).

Fifthly (is that a word?), its opening hours mean that if you're struggling to find somewhere to eat a fully-vegan meal, chances are Vegorilla can sort you out.

Sixthly - surely you don't need any more reasons? Umm, the building it's in is very old and very cool?

Seventhly, just go there and thank me later.

Vegorilla

6 Rue du Puits des Esquilles, 34000 Montpellier, France

facebook.com/vegorilla

+33 4 67 66 60 37

Sensible

If you're looking for a more fancy type of dining option, you can always head to Sensible. It's an almost all-vegan place (I think there are bee products on the menu maybe?), and one that makes vegetables the stars, not the second billing, on the menu. There's an a la carte menu for lunch, and dinners are set menus of four or six courses. And you can only visit the restaurant with a reservation, so make sure to book in advance (at least that's what the website says!)

We got a table on a Tuesday evening and settled down for four courses. I've added a few pictures below, but somehow managed to only take photos of three courses! Oops. I guess we'll have to imagine the fourth one... I asked for a gluten free menu and what came out was very similar to my dining partner's non-gluten-free option, but the staff talked me through the couple of changes they were going to make. The only real difference I saw was a different type of bread.

Before you get into the, there's some bread, vegan butter, and a couple of mushroomy morsels on the side.

The next course was cauliflower and kiw, with hazelnuts and a creamy sauce. An interesting pairing for sure. The second course - sadly missing from my camera roll - involved mashed potatoes with fennel and orange.

I think the most interesting course of the night was the one below - squash, red rice, and a coffee cream sauce. It's been a few weeks since I was at Sensible and this is the dish that has stayed with me the most - I ate it all and I couldn't decide if I enjoyed it or not. The savoury red rice alongside a sauce that reminded me of a latte seemed an interesting pairing, I just can't decide if it's interesting in a good way or interesting in a bad way.

With each course, there's a tiny test tube of flavoured water - each course has a different flavour that recalls the dish you've just eaten. For the plate above, the water had a touch of coffee in it, for others, it was fruit or herbs, a tiny refresher after each course.

The dessert was this peanut panna cotta, offest with some persimmon and just the right wobble.

I really liked the inventiveness of the food - I'm so impressed by the cleverness of pulling together combinations of ingredients that aren't normally destined to be on the same plate. I appreciated all the effort to include seasonal ingredients and all the cooking itself was clearly massively skillful. But having come back to writing this up a few weeks after my visit, I can't really remember any of the dishes being so outstandingly good that I wanted to rush back and order them all over again. It was a good meal, just not a life-changingly good one.

Restaurant Sensible

restaurantsensible.fr

25 Rue du Pila St Gély, 34000 Montpellier, France

+33 9 83 88 90 90

Vegan in Paris: Two new (to me) places for vegan and gluten-free dining

2025-12-22T06:34:18.707-08:00

Finding great vegan food in Paris isn't too hard if you know where to look. Finding great vegan food in Paris with gluten-free options can be a bit harder. Luckily, I managed to track down two places in the French capital that can do both.

The first is The Friendly Kitchen. It's an all-vegan place and all the allergens are marked clearly on the online menu. I'd mentioned when I was booking that one person on our table would be gluten-free, and our lovely server talked us through the menu and what options didn't have gluten in. Luckily, there was a lot of good stuff to choose from.

We started off with some seed crackers, something to nibble on while we waited for the main event. The crackers were way tastier than anything so healthy has any right to be, snapping satisfyingly under the teeth - a moreish start to the meal.

With temperatures dropping, the menu had a hearty autumnal vibe - food meant to stick to the ribs and give you a reason to stay indoors on dark, cold nights.

I chose the garlic confit mashed potatoes, which came with fennel slow cooked in verjus, a salad of lovage with kalamata olive and sun-dried tomato tapenade, pickled radish and a sharp balsamic sauce. The bowl of comforting mash playing back and forth with sharp flavours and crunchy vegetables, a deft balance between refreshing and comforting that was just right for the season. It was the sort of food that makes you think of all the goodness of home cooking, but with a deft touch that lets you know you're being looked after by a kitchen that takes those elements and makes them just a bit more upscale.

If you need more filling up after a bowl of mash, I'm very pleased to report there's a cheese course option - a plate of three cheese with fruit and nuts.

However, if you're in need of something sweet after your meals, there's some great choices there too, both with and without gluten.

I felt the deconstructed pear & pecan tartlet calling my name - pear-and-nut flavoured-anything speaks to the part of my soul that doesn't mind the lengthening nights, and wants to eat desserts in front of a roaring fire and wait for the seasons to change. I'm not sure what the deconstructed-ness brings to the dish, but I couldn't fault the flavours - air-light ganache, shortbread, with ginger and lemon thyme curd and pear coulis, with caramelised pecans and candied ginger scattered on top.

Again, the dish pulled off a clever trick - an indulgent dessert that didn't feel heavy and, you might even say, just a bit healthy?

The Friendly Kitchen

the-friendly-kitchen.com

8 Rue Popincourt, 75011 Paris

+33 1 43 57 33 42

The next place I enjoyed was Bodhi Vegan. While The Friendly Kitchen was bustling and a little on the fancy side, Bodhi Vegan is a smaller, more homely eating experience. As you might guess from the menu, everything is vegan, and a good number of dishes are marked gluten free on the menu (it looks like only on the physical menus in the restaurant, rather than on the online menu, alas, but if you want to get an idea of what's made without gluten a quick Google Images search should see you right). A few of the dishes involve deep fried elements, so vegan coeliacs might want to check if 'gluten free' means no gluten containing ingredients, or if there's a separate fryer for gluten and non-gluten elements (sorry I didn't ask, but if I go back, I'll update this review!)

Onto the food! Bodhi Vegan's menu is pretty long, filled with classic Vietnamese and South East Asian dishes, which makes it hard to order, given how everything sounds so good.

We settled on the Vietnamese pancakes, made with rice flour, coconut milk, and what I think translates as green bean seeds - the last one was entirely new to me, and I'm guessing made the fake-meat floss the pancakes are filled with?

I really enjoyed these dinky little pancakes, served with a dipping sauce I completely forgot to take a photo of.

Most of the mains involve either fake meat or tofu - which makes me very happy, as I love both.

The dish below translates as 'tofu in spicy sauce'. It's a bit of muted description for what actually arrived. The 'tofu in spicy sauce' was a good amount of tofu pyramids, each with the innards scooped out and the void filled with minced soya and mushrooms, and deep fried for a crisp outside. I was expecting 'spicy sauce' to be more a shorthand for something with a lot of chilli heat, but the sauce wasn't hot - it was brick red, rich and umami-heavy.

I love seeing a menu that feels familiar to omnivores made entirely vegan, and I really love a menu that leans into tofu and mock meat. The prices are very wallet-friendly for Paris too, so if you're looking for an affordable, tasty meal, Bodhi Vegan should definitely be on your itinerary.

Bodhi Vegan

bodhivegan.fr

23 Av. Claude Vellefaux, 75010

+33 1 42 85 33 87

Studio Gauthier tasting menu review: A vegan, gluten free showstopper

2025-12-07T01:51:00.000-08:00

Confession time: I don't like fancy restaurants. I always feel too unserious to be sitting in upmarket surroundings. This wouldn't normally be a problem - it's pretty easy to avoid fancy restaurants, unless you're a food critic or a chef, and I'm very much neither. There is a problem though - I do like fancy food. What's a greedy vegan to do?

The answer is go to Studio Gauthier. The original Gauthier is London's most fine-dining of vegan restaurants, offering beautiful tasting menus in a very formal setting. Studio Gauthier, however, is a more chill affair - although it's got a lot of the same cooking style as Gauthier, Studio Gauthier offers its food in a more relaxed setting.

What's more, happily, if you subscribe to the Studio Gauthier mailing list (it's at the bottom of the page here), there's often a two for one deal for the tasting menus.

And if that's not enough, Studio Gauthier proudly notes that "all our menus are designed to be made gluten free if necessary", and when I did request a gluten-free menu, they came round to check about cross-contamination too, which was very much appreciated.

But onto the food!

The amuse bouche: a dainty cup of autumnal soup. Normally, I can't get too enthused about soup, but this was a beautiful thimble-sized delight of warmingly-spiced butternut and apple soup, finished with a creamy flourish and sprinkle of chewy apple.

The first dish was kale and cabbage houmous with coconut yoghurt and crispy kale. For those eating gluten, the bread element was a brioche feuilleté and for those dodging gluten dodgers, a slice of gluten free bread. I can't tell you how the brioche feuilleté was, but I can tell you the gluten free slice was wonderfully reminiscent of proper brioche. It couldn't escape the slight gumminess that gluten free bread can sometimes suffer from, but I couldn't fault the flavour. The hummus was sadly a bit less exciting, and the coconut yoghurt that accompanied it beat the already subtle dip into submission, losing its flavour to the astringency of the yoghurt.

The sushi dish was somewhat surprisingly one of my favourite parts of the meal. There were three perfect sushi: fried sushi with palm heart tartare and dill; parsnips rolls sushi with avocado and sesame kimchi, and beetroot nigiri with crunchy wasabi and fennel. I couldn't fault any of them. As a secret dill fiend, I thought the fried sushi would win for me, but the beetroot tipped it. The slippery beetroot, whose muddy flavour normally dominates food, was tempered by the crispy wasabi and scenty fennel.

The third course for gluten-eaters was a celeriac agnolotti. The gluten-free third dish wasn't a nod to the pasta dish, but entirely its own beast, and glorious for being so. It was a wintery feeling dish, a box of fried potato, a creamy sauce, and a topping of vegan caviar. How you make vegan caviar, I can't tell you, but I can confirm the little bombs of umami are great fun to eat.

The last savoury course felt like the biggest nod to Gauthier's classical French cookery: smoked maitake mushroom, creamy potatoes, fried capers, and vin jaune sauce. The potatoes were great, the mushroom was great, but the sauce was next level - so incredibly rich. I would have happily eaten a bowl of that on its own. The crispy fried mushroom morsels on the side were a great textural foil to the rest of the dish.

By the time dessert came out, I was entirely stuffed. I had no wish to eat more food. I had eaten enough, and then I had eaten a little bit more. I did not want another course. Then the dessert came, and I did very much want another course.

The dessert is billed as 'pear and almond' on the menu, and there is an understatedness to the little Christmas bauble-looking delight that arrived at our table. And it did remind me of a Christmas bauble - dainty, fragile, sparkling and so pretty to look at.

The 'pear and almond' was a pear entremet - a layer dessert of mousse and sponge in a chocolate shell - with puffed quinoa and a caramel sauce. It was glorious. It was a great meal, but I might even go so far as to say this was the highlight.

This was a generous meal, beautifully cooked, and interesting to eat. It's one of the best meals I've had in ages, and especially as I didn't feel like I was missing out without the gluten. I'm looking forward to going back as soon as I can.

Studio Gauthier

studiogauthier.co.uk

BFI Building, 21 Stephen St, London W1T 1LN

07759 155 344

Vegan in Utrecht: A weekend of fancy dinners and junk food in this gorgeous Dutch city

2025-11-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I gave up flying. I didn't give up travelling though - I've just switched to taking the train everywhere. As a UK resident, that means normally jumping on the Eurostar, and making my way to somewhere interesting from there.

Thanks to two Eurostar stops in the Netherlands - Amsterdam and Rotterdam - I've made a few visits around the country. Of all the places I've been, it's Utrecht that I've visited multiple times and that I'd love to get back to before too long.

It's the Netherlands' fourth largest city, which means it's big enough to be packed with enough things to keep you busy for a good few days, and small enough you can get around on foot and take it all in. And it's a lovely city to stroll around in - pretty streets, interesting architecture, appealing brown cafes - you can happily spend hours just following your nose and taking it all in.

Of course, you're here because you want to know about the vegan eating options, and I'm happy to say that Utrecht is punching way above its weight with the quality and quantity of its plant-based food.

Broei

restaurant-broei.com

Oosterkade 24, 3582 AV Utrecht, Netherlands

+31 30 737 0005

If you're in the mood for fancy food, then you need to head down to Broei. It's an all vegan spot, slightly outside of the city centre (but at a walkable distance!) that's open from breakfast to dinner.

The menu is very much vegetable led, so don't expect much in the way of seitan, tofu or tempeh. But do expect a very creative menu, and one that's refreshed every eight weeks, to keep it in tune with what's in season at the time.

If you want to try at little bit of everything, Broei offers three, four or five course menus. When we went, four seemed just the right amount - the individual plates aren't huge, and having four courses lets you try out more dishes. Great drinks list too.

KLUTS

klutsutrecht.nl

Achter de Dom 6, 3512 JP Utrecht, Netherlands

+31 30 751 0688

Utrecht is a great place for a long weekend visit. If you're a history nerd, Utrecht punches well above its weight in terms of tourist attractions. I really enjoyed DOMunder - an exhibition of 2000 years of history under the cathedral square (I loved a tile several hundreds years old still holding the imprint of a paw, testament to the cat that wondered over while the tiles were drying). If you're around the cathedral - the Domkerk in Dutch - there's another treat. There's KLUTS.

KLUTS is an all-vegan bakery, and a cosy spot to stop for a coffee and a cake in the shadow of the Dom tower. We stopped in a few times, enjoying the array of beautiful cakes and pastries laid out appealingly at the counter. I ordered cardamom bun after cardamom bun, because who wouldn't want an upgrade the cinnamon version? Trust me, KLUTS' version is stellar.

Life's A Peach

lifesapeach.nl

Hardebollenstraat 9, 3512 TP Utrecht, Netherlands

Phone: +31 6 17805026

If you want to go to Life's a Peach - and you definitely should - wait for a sunny day. Then go early. Or go late. Just make sure you grab one of the seats outside, or by the counter, order yourself a load of baked treats, and enjoy them with the sun on your face.

You can pick from a couple of farinatas - chickpea flour pancakes - as well as a range of foccacias, all with vegan toppings. I'm not a huge fan of mushrooms but was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the funghi focaccia below. (If you're wondering why a mushroom-dodger like me would order a mushroom-heavy dish, it was because the vegans of Utrecht had already got there and cleaned out a lot of the other choices. Great for them, and it turns out, great for me too!)

There's pastries and cakes too. When I was there, there were cinnamon roll and donuts, but looking at the menu now, it looks like you can get the far superior cardamom roll too. I'm glad to see the Netherlands leading the promotion of cardamom-based treats.

And once you've fnished off your vegan foccaccia, maybe a pastry, and you're finishing up your coffee - take look around at the art prints, postcards, and T-shirts too, because Life's A Peach also sells all sorts of handmade beautiful things to take home with you too.

Last Vegas

lastvegas.nl

Korte Jansstraat 3, 3512 GM Utrecht, Netherlands

+31 6 40040400

There are apparently around 5,000 snackbars in the Netherlands - cafes where you go to get your fix of deep-friend goodness, normally fries and Dutch classics like bitterballen or frikandellen. On first glance, Dutch snackbars aren't the vegan-friendliest - most snackbar staples involve meat or cheese in some way.

In Utrecht, though, there's always Last Vegas - an all-vegan snackbar to cater to your junk food cravings. There's plain and sweet potato fries, vegan croquettes, nuggets, frikandellen and bitterballen, as well as vegan burgers.

There's also a section for loaded fries, including the famous Dutch kapsalon. The Gambling Rendang fries caught my eye though - a mountain of fries topped with another mountain of rendang made with jackfruit, topped with fried onion and sriracha mayo.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about the whole experience - that there was far too much food to eat in one go, so I had to abandon half of the chips.

In keeping with Dutch snackbars, Last Vegas isn't a place to go for a long dinner - it's more where grab your food and go, or sit down for a quick bite before heading off. But if you're looking for some proper Dutch snackbar food that's proper tasty, Last Vegas will see you right.

Three of the vegan best: What I ate at this year's Octoberbest

2025-10-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

Every year, as the weather turns colder and the nights get longer, Brighton restaurants get cheaper. October in Brighton means Octoberbest and, nope, that's not a spelling error. Octoberbest is when Brighton's self-described best restaurants sell set menus for an 'affordable' price. (Your mileage may vary on what counts as affodable, but a lot of places tend to price their set menus as £25 to £35.)

The only fully vegan place taking part in Octoberbest this year was Bonsai, which sold out before I could sign up for a reservation (if you want to know more about Bonsai and its food, you can read about my previous visit here). So, no Bonsai for me. But luckily a few omni restaurants had vegan menus, and I felt it was my duty to go check out a handful of them.

KITGUM

First up, Kitgum - a restaurant that serves food with Persian, Indian and East African influences. It's a small, cosy restaurant that leaves you elbow to elbow with everyone else dining, but the food's so good it doesn't really matter.

A bowl of mathiya were set out on the table, ready for diners' arrival - a crispy moreish snack with the sort of chilli heat that sneaks up on you.

Corn ribs followed along not long after. Spoiler: all of the Octoberbest menus had corn ribs on. Is this a new thing? Is there a corn rib TikTok trend I missed out on? Have vegans been lobbying their MPs for more corn ribs at non vegan restaurants? They were good, so no complaint here.

Then momos! I like a good momo. Or, I thought I did. The momos I've had before have been steamed dumplings, not the crispy comfort bombs that Kitgum serves. The chilli ginger chutney with it was also a delight. Now I think about it, the sauces and chutneys were all great at Kitgum - instead of being the sidekicks, they were the breakout stars.

The last savoury plate was a Zanzibar mix, channa broth with potato bhajia, coconut chutney, chilli, and crisps. The bhajia were the classic crisp on the outside, soft in the middle, understated foil for all those great sauces and chutneys again - all of them had me wondering how much I could scrape the plate for the last drops of sauce before it became unseemly. The crisps had gone a little soft in the sauce, but I was also swooning at its presence, so who can blame them?

Dessert was mango sorbet with a biscoff-type crumb. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't have said no to something a bit more exciting - I reckon most vegans have probably had their lifetime's fill of solid but unexciting sorbet at non-vegan restaurants.

The portion sizes at Kitgum felt small, but I'm not sure if that's more a reflection of Kitgum or me? Still, there might not have been enough quantity for me, but there was more than enough quality. I'll be going back soon, and I'll be sure to order an obscene amount of food when I do.

ANAKUMA

Next up, Anakuma, an Asian fusion restaurant with a low-key, Japandi looking interior.

Me and Mr Flickingthevs got to try a couple of warm ups before the main plate - a bowl of edamame, still fridge cold, and a dainty blue-corn tostada with bulgogi wild mushrooms and burnt leek aioli.

The main event was a plate of all sorts of fun things: small mounds of tukemono pickles, alongside corn ribs, basted with tajin and paprika (if you're playing count the corn rib appearances, this is number two).

Anakuma's Octoberbest menu had listed a "charcoal-grilled fried rice ball" which had been subbed out by an inari - rice wrapped in a pocket of sweet tofu. The inari felt a little underseasoned - maybe my tastebuds were secretly mourning the lack its promised charcoal cousin? The published menu's stuffed aubergine katsu with black garlic mole and shiso chimichurri had also disappeared, replaced by what looked like aubergine dengaku - soft and sweet, and one of the plate's highlights.

The other highlight - the crispy enoki bao - was the real surprise though. I don't love bao buns normally - it feels there's always too much bun and not enough filling, leaving you chewing through the dinner equivalent of a pillow, or the filling can't fight against the all consuming blandness of the bun. Baos too often feel like chores. My low expectations were turned on their head: this was a bao to be proud of - a light, crispy, mushroom delight that made the bun the warm up act not the main event, exactly as it should be.

The dessert though was the real joy. I rarely meet a brownie that makes my heart beat faster, but Anakuma's awase miso dark chocolate brownie did just that. It was dark, grown up brownie, studded with bitter chocolate chunks and sweetened with coconut caramel. Delicious. The brownie portion again made me sad in its smallness - who wants a postage-stamp-sized dessert when it's this good? - but again, I wonder if that's a me problem or an Anakuma one.

HALISCO

The last of our Octoberbest visits was to Halisco, a Mexican joint recently voted Brighton's best restaurant according to Time Out.

We were seated in the basement, dimly lit and intimate compared to the bright and buzzy ground floor - if you're out for dinner with someone you should be, definitely head downstairs.

We started with tortilla chips with refried beans and vegan feta, followed by padron peppers, garlic mayo. These were simple dishes, but highly moreish. I could go a thousand lifetimes without eating most vegan feta, but I couldn't keep my chips out of the refried beans.

I really enjoyed the pozole verde - a green tomatillo soup with goodies like green chillis and baked tortilla strips lurking in the spicy depths. The corn ribs that came next (third time - you've now completed your corn rib bingo card) were my favourite of the trio I tried - swamped in spiky brick red paprika oil. A real mess to eat it, but I was happy to sacrifice the pristineness of my white shirt to the enjoyment of corn ribs.

At a Mexican restaurant, I feel like your tortilla-based dishes have to be on point. The Octoberbest menu had two - they bookended the meal as both my favourite and least favourite dish of the meal. The oyster mushroom taco with chilli crisp tipped the scales a bit too far on the salt and the chilli crisps got a bit lost. The sweet potato tostada with cactus, pickles and mustard mayo was top notch, wtih soft sweet potato, crunchy tostada and zingy mustard in the sort of mix that falls apart as you eat it, but you don't mind too much, because it's fun, tasty food.

Given how good and generously-portioned the rest of the meal had been, I had high hopes for the dessert, described as banana, dark chocolate, horchata ice cream sandwich, on the menu. The Octoberbest had a veggie and a vegan version, which appeared to be pretty similar - vegan feta instead of animal feta, paprika oil instead of butter and so on - but the vegan ice cream sandwich was a lot less sandwichy than the veggie version. Instead of ice cream sandwiched between two biscuits, there was just ice cream. I felt a little robbed. Why no biscuits for the vegans kings and queens? That said, couldn't fault the ice cream itself and, I'm happy to report, the portions were decent, so I went home full and happy.

Vegan in Florence: There are just too many good choices - but these are my favourites

2025-10-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

Florence is an incredible city. It's beautiful, historic, lively. I spent five days there and wish I spent more. But do you know what I loved most of all? The food. The food was so good. I didn't know there were so many great plant-based options - so let me share with you a few of the amazing places I went, including what might be one of my favourite vegan-friendly options of all time.

Cortese Café

cortesecafe.com

Plaza di Santa Maria Novella, 12R, 50123 Firenze FI, Italy

+39 055 024 1691

I went to Florence two months ago and now, looking at these photos, I wish I could teleport myself back there so I could eat at Cortese Cafe again.

Cortese Cafe describes itself as a raw vegan organic and gluten free bakery and ice cream shop. Having tried a few raw and gluten free recipes and restaurants with varying levels of success so, to my shame, I went in with pretty low expectations. I was absolutely blown away - everything I tried was a stone cold banger. I went back twice. I would have gone back a third and fourth time if I'd have been in the neighbourhood again.

I tried a few of the tarts - crisp pastry, with soft enticing vegetable fillings, like spinach and cashew cheese and softly spiced squash. One I got to try still warm from the oven. I guess not all of the food is raw, but it was all delicious.

There were croissants at lunch, filled with moreishly roasted vegetables, sharp against the savoury wholemeal pastry.

And there are pastries, cakes and biscuits that go on for days - that chocolate dome had all sorts of pistachio delights underneath, and was so fine and dainty, I felt like if emperors of days gone by could have seen me, they would have been jealous of the delights sat in front of me.

If that wasn't enough, there's a whole cabinet of different flavours of ice cream to try. I dived right in with an affogato. Turns out the coffee is just as good at the ice cream - and both were pretty great.

The cafe itself is a really nice bright-and-airy spot and it's right in the middle of a lot of Florence's tourist attractions, so it's worth getting yourself down there if you're heading to Palazzo Pitti or the Boboli Gardens. To be fair, it's also worth getting yourself down there even if you're not!

Ora

orafirenze.it/en

Via S. Zanobi, 126R, 50129 Firenze FI, Italy

+39 055 463 3414

Vegetarian-but-vegan-friendly Ora is a little outside the main tourist centre of Florence but it's worth the (slight) extra walk.

If you want to eat outside Ora, there's a great little terrace. If you want a more dark, sleek vibe, eat inside. The service is brisk and efficient.

The dishes are simple, classical, mostly Italian fare: pastas, risottos, aperitivo-type sharing boards, with a few international classics like burgers to round out the numbers.

Mr Flicking the Vs and I opened the meal with a vegetable tempura which was lovely, crips and light. Then, there was gnocchi.

There's something delightful about the bounce of gnocchi between your teeth that's happy-making, and Ora's gnocchi did just that - made me happy.

Il Vegano

ilveganofirenze.it

43, Via S. Gallo, 75 Rosso, 50129 Firenze FI, Italy

+39 055 486222

Not every vegan or veggie restaurant can be a stone cold banger, and Il Vegano is a bit of the proverbial curate's egg - only good in parts.

First, the less good parts.

Mr Flicking the Vs' ordered a lasagna. I really like lasagna. A lot. It would probably be up there on my death row meal list. I see a lasagna, I have a Pavlovian reaction - my pupils dilate, my heart beats faster. It's love.

So when I tucked into Mr Flickingthevs' lasagna, it made me sad - it was a bit bland, a bit soft, with that vegan cheese that sticks to your teeth in a weird immovable layer.

I opted for the chick pea omelette.

It was fine, a bit one note. It would have been so much better folded with a more interesting filling. The undressed salad and the tomato sauce on the side really didn't bring a huge amount, and the plain, stale rice cake was a bit of a choice. I'm not quite sure how that made it onto the plate, but I wish it hadn't.

And the good bits - the service was good, the drink pours were generous and the tiramisu was glorious - a pillowy, sweet indulgence with spiky coffee to balance it out. If I was passing by Florence again, I'd certainly drop in for a three course meal, as long as the starter was tiramisu, the main course was tiramisu, and the dessert was tiramisu.

Santo Falafel

santofalafel.shoppingflash.it

Via Santa Monaca, 7R, 50124 Firenze FI, Italy

+39 055 1998 2050

Not every meal when you're on holiday has to be a sit down, pull up a chair, unfold your napkin affair. Sometimes, you just want to grab something, find a pretty square, and pull something lovely out of a bag for your lunch. If you're in Florence and feeling that way, please let me recommend Santo Falafel - all-vegan falafel joint with all the Middle Eastern classics that complement the Florentine sunshine. (It's also a nice, chilled out spot to eat-in if that summer Tuscan heat is too much!)

You can work your way through a menu of classics - hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, falafel, wraps, halva and baklava. Or you can try something that blends Arabic flavours and Italian breads, and choose from a range of focaccia with fillings like zatar or muhammara.

Or, if you're me, you can pick up one of the lunch combos that has a bit of everything, and congratulate yourself on your excellent decision making.

This is the Babylon box - falafel, stuffed vine leaves, tabbouleh, hummus, beetroot hummus and baba ganoush. Every element was on point. The only misstep - me, not buying a load of pitta bread to convey those glorious dips into my face.

Panini Toscani

instagram.com/paninitoscanifirenze

Piazza del Duomo, 34/R, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy

+39 335 572 5544

If you're by the Duomo and you're in the market for a quick sandwich, I reckon you should head to Panini Toscani.

If you can make it past the Robert de Niro-esque entrance boss, whose main job seemed to be harassing tourists to move faster in picking up their sandwiches, you can stand at the counter, picking our your preferred bread and all the veggie fillings you'd like, of which there are many. When I stood there ogling the options, I asked for "all the vegetables". "Vegan, you mean?" asked the lovely soul making the sandwiches. "Here, let me choose you the biggest bread." And she did. And it was great.

The sandwich was great - lots of silky roast vegetables and a sharp agrodolce sauce to set them off, in a ciabatta that easily fed to. There's some seating outside, where you can enjoy your lunch and some great cathedral views. For the location, the size of the sarnie and its quality, I left feeling fuller than expected in both stomach and wallet.

Shake Cafe

shakecafe.it/en

Various locations across Florence

How hungry are you? Really hungry? And it's too late for breakfast, and too early for lunch, you say? May I suggest you head to Shake Cafe? And make sure you have a belt that can be loosened a few notches, because this brunch is going to be immense.

Shake Cafe is a chain with a handful of branches across Florence. They're not vegan, but they do have a good range of vegan options, with plant milk for coffee, as well as pastries and cakes for a light breakfast.

But if you're after a massive brunch, the Shake Cafe vegan brunch is an absolutely banger. Take a look at this:

There is a really huge amount of food. You could easily share this plate between two. I say could, but I didn't. I ate pretty much everything myself, with the exception of the vegan feta, which I didn't love, and passed on to Mr Flickingthevs, who did.

The plate has a mix of sweet and savoury. There's avocado toast, a hearty chick pea omelette with vegetables, some salad leaves and marinated tomatoes, and sweet potatoes and harissa mayo. For the sweet side of the plate, there's a choice of chocolate chip pancakes or banana bread - I went for the former and got a bucket of maple syrup to top them with.

I love a generous plate, and this was exceedingly that. I was particularly happy to see some non-obvious elements on vegan brunch plate. Although I love both, there's more to life than avocado toast and scrambled tofu and Shake Cafe showed that. Bonus points for making sweet potato fries that are crisp rather than soggy, and pancakes that are bouncy and the right amount of sweet.

Brac

libreriabrac.net

Via dei Vagellai, 18/R, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy

+39 055 094 4877

Of everywhere I ate at in Italy - and there were loads of amazing restaurants with memorable meals - the place I'd love to revisit above all others is Brac.

Brac is a lovely space - a book shop out the front, with chairs inviting you to sit down and leaf through pages while the afternoon drifts away. Out the back, an airy courtyard and a cosy restaurant that invite you to sit down and pass the evening too.

The menu changes regularly, so I can't quite say what will be on offer when you go, but there seems to always be a mixture of salads, pasta, and dishes from around the world, available on their own, or as a plate of three dishes for €20.

Alas, I didn't write down what three dishes I chose, so from memory - an avocado carpaccio; a tortellini of potato with ginger sauce, and a smoky tempeh and vegetable fry.

I wish I had written down what I'd eaten, because then I could wax lyrical about the different elements. As it is, I remember the tempeh and mushrooms being moreishly smoky, and the potato tortellini being a delightfully neutral foil to the layers of spice in the ginger sauce.

As it is, all I can tell you is that everything was expertly cooked, deftly flavoured, and glorious to eat. It's the sort of meal where you and the other people at the table go quiet while you eat, and just nod and smile at each other, because the food is incredible, and you'd rather be eating than talking.

The next time I went back, I ordered the same plate again, because it was so good, and I wanted to eat each and every thing one more time. The tempeh was different - black beans rather than soy beans. I think? - and the accompanying veggies had been switched up. It was still an absolute joy.

Brac is veggie rather than vegan, but they're very vegan friendly. They were able to make a vegan version of a pasta dish listed as vegetarian, and when I ordered a dessert without checking if it was veggie or vegan, they brought it to the table and let me know it was not only vegan, but they'd added vegan instead of dairy cream for me.

The cakes were nice enough, but nowhere near the heights of the mains.

That said, I would go back in a heartbeat, eat everything from start to finish again, and then wander back to the bookshop to browse the shelves. I'd leave Brac very, very happy indeed.

Eating vegan in the Italian city of Bolzano: It's a tough job, but here's how you do it

2025-09-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

Bolzano is a very cool, very beautiful place. I found mention of it in a travel guidebook and headed there on a whim - Germanic vibes meets Italian culture in the Alps? Sign me up.

It's a city for outdoorsy people, of which I'm very much not on - but the views, the history, the old town all won my heart. We spent a handful of days there this summer and I'm already wondering how I can make sure it's on my next Italian itinerary.

Is it a vegan paradise? Sadly not. Is it somewhere you can find plant-based food for a few days without issue? Absolutely. Here are a few places we tried, some we'd rush back to and some we... well, read on.

Urban Brunch

Via Argentieri, 18, 39100 Bolzano BZ, Italy

+39 0471 366397

urbanmenu.altervista.org

Urban Brunch is not going to rock your world. It's not going to serve you up a dish you haven't had before, or couldn't try elsewhere in any other city that's frequented by a reasonable amount of tourists across the world. There's matcha lattes and avocado on toast, bagels and burgers. What stands out about Urban Brunch though is that, in a town where vegan options aren't plentiful, it has some decent vegan options on its menu, and they're clearly marked to boot.

If you're in the mood for a full brunch, there's an entirely vegan option for €22: apple pie, hummus toast, and an oat matcha latte.

I really enjoyed the apple pie - suitably sweet, suitably deep and suitably cinnamon-ed. If I was feeling pedantic, I'd say it was more a tart than a pie, because there's no pastry on top, but I'm not, so I'll let it go. I'd happily order this again.

Below is what Urban Brunch calls its 'yummus toast' - I guess it's a clunky portmanteau of yummy and hummus? Luckily, the name is the worst thing about that. I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed by this, but it was actually really good - half smashed avocado on toast, half silky hummus, with some surprisingly good tomatoes and poppy seeds for garnish.

Bonus points to Urban Brunch for having outdoor seating to watch le tout Bolzano pass by while you're sipping on your coffee. So, tl:dr - Urban Brunch isn't going to change your world, but it's a pleasant stop for breakfast.

Nadamas

Piazza delle Erbe, 43/44, 39100 Bolzano BZ, Italy

+39 0471 980684

nadamasbz.it

Prepare yourself for what might become something of a theme over the next few paragraphs. If I were to describe a visit to Nadamas, I'd say it's an appealing space, lovely outdoors, while the food is fine, it's fairly unexciting, but great to have any vegan options at all in a town that's not overflowing with them.

Nadamas is a pub of two halves - outside, there's a buzzy terrace for soaking in the Bolzano sun and watching the world go by, and inside is dark and cosy, perfect for seeing out the Alpine winter in comfort while plotting what you'll do when the good weather returns.

Nadamas' online menu doesn't show what's vegan and what's not, but the paper menus make it clear, and during our visit, there were enough vegan choices to have a starter, main and dessert if you wanted. I wasn't hungry enough for three courses so just helped myself to the tofu thai rice below.

It wasn't the most Thai-flavoured dish I'd ever eaten. It's more the vibe of 'I've decided to make fried rice with whatever veg are at the back of the fridge and need using up'. No shame in that game - it was tasty - but Thai it was not.

So again, nice place, food was fine if not exciting, but I'd still be happy to go back.

Poke Go

Via Leonardo Da Vinci, 6, 39100 Bolzano BZ, Italy

+39 350 860 3437

Poke Go is one of a handful of poke places in Bolzano, and the reason we took ourselves here instead of any of the other places dotted around the city is that Poke Go has a straightforward, vegan-friendly ordering system. You get a piece of paper with pictures of what you want, tick off all your choices - vegetable, protein, base, the usual - and then they make it up to your spec.

This was a large bowl with tofu, chickpeas, edamame and who knows what else, and it was enough to feed two of us, which makes it not only tasty, but cheap too.

Gelaterie Portogallo

gelaterieportogallo.it

Via Museo, 26, 39100 Bolzano BZ, Italy

+39 0471 180 1910

What's the point in going to Italy without checking out all the gelato? Bolzano might not be as blessed as other Italian cities in terms of vegan-friendly ice cream places but that doesn't mean you can't get your plant-based gelato on.

Portogallo Gelateria always had a massive queue in front of it any time we walked past, including at 10pm at night. It also had the most interesting vegan flavours. Are they connected? Who's to say, but it certainly was the reason me and Mr Flicking the Vs joined that queue when we got a chance.

This is pear sorbet with chocolate chips and it was wholly delicious. There's lots of fruit flavours as well as chocolate, all clearly marked vegan. If I'd have had more time in Bolzano working my way through the rest of the menu.

Tandoori Home Food

tandoorihomefood.it

Via della Roggia, 22, 39100 Bolzano BZ, Italy

Phone: +39 351 292 5400

Tandoori Home Food is tucked away down a side street, and chalks up being another of Bolzano's restaurants blessed with a dainty little outdoor space where you can sit down for a meal with a bit of sun on your face and people watching on your retinas.

The online menu references a few vegan choices and has allergens listed, so you should be able to work out what's good for herbivores without too much effort, right? Umm, unfortunately not. The rickshaw box that me and Mr Flicking the Vs picked to shared between us is described as a "mixed vegan platter". Only when it arrived, it wasn't vegan - there was a dairy yoghurt dip. Much sadness ensued.

The dip was whisked away and we were assured that the rest of the dish was indeed vegan, but my mellow had sadly been harshed. Which was as shame, because the rest of it was lovely - lots of spicy, crunchy delights with some chutneys for extra spice.

Having had a nasty dairy surprise with the starter, I'd pretty much lost my appetite by the time the rest of the food came around. I'd chosen a tofu tikka and it looked like this:

I couldn't really tell where the bowl ended and the sauce began, and I couldn't tell where the sauce ended and the tofu began, because there were only a few cubes of tofu swinning in a few pints of sauce. It tasted fine, but every time I lowered my spoon, I felt like I was about to enter a bottomless vortex of pink that, for all I knew, spiralled on forever. The rice was good.

Other options

Bolzano has a few other veg-friendly options: Un Melograno, Humus and Pacha Mama all have good write-ups online, but we never seemed to time our visits right and kept passing by when they were shut. Vegan hotel La Vimea is also nearby and looks amazing for food.

My visit to Bolzano was sandwiched in between Florence and Verona, where I ate like a happy vegan queen and found some amazing restaurants. I loved Bolzano as a place and am looking forward to a return visit. Sure, it's not a vegan foodie's paradise, but you can get plant-based meals without much trouble, and spend the rest of your time just looking at those views...

Vegan in Verona: Italy's hidden gem for plant-based eating

2025-09-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune to find myself in Verona for four days in high summer. I braved the 30C+ temperatures to eat my way around the city. I had heard that Italy wasn't particularly vegan friendly. This must have been told to me by non-vegans, because dear reader, Verona was heavy with vegan goodness. Let me take you through the vegan culinary delights of the city

La Magnolia (or Pasticceria Vegana Biologica La Magnolia)

Reader, I have a confession to make. I am a vegan cheese snob. I like the expensive, made-of-cashews stuff - it gives me the creamy but fermented bite I crave in vegan cheese. The rest of it pretty much makes me want to turn a flamethrower on my tastebuds after a bite or two - it's often sad, greasy, and smells a bit like sweaty socks.

La Magnolia surprised me by selling a sandwich with a non-cashew based cheese that didn't taste like sadness and that I actually enjoyed. To be fair, La Magnolia also combined said cheese with some seitan ham and salad, and then wrapped it in a duvet of focaccia. If there's one thing I love more than tasty vegan food, it's epic quantities of tasty vegan food - and I ended up managing about half of this absolute unit of a sandwich before passing it on to Mr Flickingthevs. If you're going to La Magnolia, make sure you have an empty stomach and a hearty appetite.

If there's one thing I like more than epic quantities of tasty vegan food, it's tiny tasty vegan food. Honestly, I love a canape or a miniature version of anything. La Magnolia has a cabinet full of tiny treats, so you can taste everything without lapsing into a sugar-coma - you can see the dainty chocolate treat I had below, alongside some mini-pizzas and a distinctly not-mini croissant, stuffed with seitan and cheese. Again, another vegan cheese I really enjoyed - clearly, there is wizardry at work here.

La Lanterna

Piazzetta Portichetti, 6, 37123 Verona VR, Italy

+39 045 594929

lalanternaverona.it

If you asked me to close my eyes and imagine the sort of restaurant I'd be eating at in Verona, I think I'd probably have imagined La Lanterna - a small, homey, neighbourhood sort of place, with a menu laden with all the Italian classics you know, and lots you don't. And yep, it would be entirely vegan.

If you're looking to try some interesting pastas, this is the place to come. There were lots of primi piatti that were new to me - aubergine gnocchi! chicory ravioli! - as well as more familiar dishes like spaghetti carbonara and ragout. I picked the capeletti, stuffed with chick peas and mint, with confit tomatoes and aubergines, and I couldn't have been happier. Me and Mr Flickingthevs shared some caponata, below. It was all simple, unfussy stuff, but cooked really well and guaranteed to leave you with a big, tomatoey smile on your face.

Whenever I see tiramisu on a menu at home, I am powerless to resist it. Now, imagine the tractor beam style pull of a tiramisu in Italy! There were other dessert choices on the menu at La Lanterna, but realistically I might as well have been looking at a piece of cardboard with the single word 'tiramisu' printed on it.

There was a slight chalky taste to the langue du chats in it that made me wonder if they might have been gluten free. It was also a bit on the dense side - not the light, pillowy texture I tend to associate with tiramisu. Still, it was a pleasant dessert to eat, and my enjoyment was no doubt increased by La Lanterna's range of interesting digestifs...

Ammazza Caffee

Vicolo Volto Cittadella, 12/A, 37122 Verona VR, Italy

amzcaffe.com

This place made me glad I don't live in Verona, because I know that if I did, I'd be spending stupid amounts of money every day, because this place is lovely.

There are a few reasons for that. First, the service is great. Every time I went in to order, the person serving me was a delight. Second, the coffee is great - if you're a serious-but-not-pretentious about-coffee person, you're going to feel right at home. Third, the whole place is vegan, which is amazing.

The food choices are basically cakes and things on toast. I tried I think about three or four different cakes - carrot and almond, apple and cinnamon, almond, and pear and chocolate. I enjoyed them all.

What I really enjoyed though was the things on toast - below was peanut butter and almond on the left, and pane e pannelle on the right - gram flour omelette, farinata in Italian, and the greatest garlicky creamy aioli goodness underneath. It was good, once I'd finished, I wanted to go back and order the same thing straight away again.

Ristorante Flora

Stradone Scipione Maffei, 8c, 37121 Verona VR, Italy

+390458006300

ristoranteflora.it

Have you ever sat down at a restaurant and immediately thought you'd made the wrong decision? Let me tell you, I really thought I'd made the wrong call when I pulled a chair up to the table at Flora. We were the only people there. The dining room was quiet. The music was muted. I almost turned around and wandered straight out. That would have been a really big mistake - I think Flora would be locked in a death-match with Ammazza for the grand title of my favourite place I ate in Verona.

It's the sort of place that gives macrobiotic vegan food a really good name. The gluten free rolls were so good, I almost didn't notice the lack of gluten. The prosecco was poured with a heavy hand. The food was fun and tasty. What more could you ask for?

Apologies for my half-arsed photography here - the picture below is really not doing justice to how good this beautifully was. I can't remember what this dish was called, but it translated as something along the lines of a tofu seafood papillotte - a mix of tofu, olives, tomatoes, capers, chickpeas and seaweed, cooked together in a parchment paper pouch.

I apologise for the photo that follows - it was really good dish.

The papillotte was the right side of sea-brine flavour, and full of good things, and there was more of the delicious cashew cheese and some tomato sauce.

I don't know if it was the inauspicious beginnings, the deft food, or the generous prosecco pours, but I ended up leaving Flora with a big smile. Recommended.

Nosh

Stradone Porta Palio, 5, 37122 Verona, Italy

+39 351 641 8327

noshasian.it

Nosh was the first restaurant we ate at in Verona, and it was alas the least interesting. If it sounds like I'm slating it, I'm not - it just had a lot of tasty competition and what daft soul goes to Italy to eat non-specific Asian street food? If you're thinking 'well, that daft soul appears to be you, Flickingthevs', you would of course be right. So why did I end up there? We arrived in Verona late, and as is the way with travel, tired and hungry, and not of too much of a mind to go strolling the streets of Verona hunting for veganity. So, Nosh was round the corner from our hotel, open when we wanted food, and had a decent amount of vegan things clearly marked on the menu, and sometimes, that's just what you need.

Nosh's menu (in English here) has a healthy vegan section. There's starters and sides (dumplings, tasty pops - which appear to be the-not-traditionally-Asian tater tots), pad thai, ramen and rice bowls. The pic above is the rainbow bowl - veggies, rice, tofu, teriyaki sauce and vegan mayo. Was it earth-shatteringly good? No. Was it cheap, filling and tasty? Yes, it definitely was. And extra bonus points for Nosh for offering all their bubble teas in vegan versions. I'd happily go back.

Last but not least - ice cream

There's no shortage of good ice in Verona, but there are two honourable mentions for Gelateria Ballini and QB.

Gelateria Ballini has a couple of branches in the city, and wins my love for having not only everything vegan clearly labelled, but also flavours of ice cream that I haven't seen before - behold, the mighty vegan pistachio!

My other vote of appreciation goes to QB Gelato, which also has a few branches around the city, clear vegan signage and all manner of fun vegan stuff. I had an almond granita. And then some melon sorbet which was mind-blowingly good on a 30 degree day in Verona. And probably on any other day too.

Why you should support your local vegan place: A review of brunch at Brighton's Botanique

2024-12-06T02:12:00.000-08:00

You know that place near you? The vegan place? It's a nice local cafe or restaurant or something, and you keep meaning to go, but you haven't got around to it yet? That's the one.

There's one of those that's not a million miles from where I live. It's a place called Botanique, near Brighton. It's an all-vegan place, with an interesting seasonal menu. On weekdays, it serves upscale plant-based plates, and there's a tasting menu if you want to try all the highlights. If you go on a Sunday, it's a more affordable brunch menu. Obviously, I went on a Sunday.

When we turned up at peak Sunday lunchtime, we couldn't tell if the place was open - there were empty chairs across the restaurant. When we pushed open the door, we found we were the only people there, and we were alone in the restaurant for a good hour during our meal. It would have been awkward were it not for the lovely service.

We started off with focaccia and smoked butter. Or, to put it another way, it's pretty much just fancy bread and butter. But what cracking bread and butter it was.

The focaccia was the right mix of soft and bouncy in the middle and sharply crisp on the outside, but it was studded with soft, almost caramel-sweet carrots throughout. The smoked butter was incredibly good - with a smoke flavour that was present without being overly assertive, making you feel you've been hammered in the mouth with wafts of charcoal. Luckily, there was more butter than the focaccia needed, and I kept it to hand for anointing the dish that came next.

Botanique's brunch mains are a handful of brunch classics: a benedict, pancakes, french toast. I chose the potato hash, because potatoes are very clearly the king of vegetables and this is a hill I will die on.

What do you think of when a hash? For me, I think of fried cubes of potatoes, with vegetables or other treats mixed in. The Botanique hash was more a big pile of mashed potatoes, shot through with leeks. To pep up the soft, mild mash, there was a chunk of grilled hispi cabbage, some pink pickled onions and a top of romesco sauce. I don't know if the proportions were a little off, but I would have loved more of that delicious sauce to partner the mash.

It's a terrible picture, but a sweetly comforting plate. I would have eaten it twice over (that's both because I'm greedy and because the portion wasn't huge).

What I wouldn't have eaten twice over was Mr Flickingthevs' choice of pancakes. Those fellas were about the size of dustbin lids. They say you should never eat anything bigger than your face - but I would have eaten two head-sized things to finish off those pancakes.

There was a lot to love about those pancakes, apart from the fact they were massive. They were gluten free, but you could't tell. There was coconut yoghurt everywhere, which usually I don't love, but it made sour counterpoint to the sweetness of the pancakes. The crumble top and the berry compote were more of the sweet-sour dance. There's a reason pancakes exist on brunch menus, and it's because they're great.

Having finished off the pancakes, Mr Flickingthevs had no more room for dessert. Thanks to the more moderately proportioned hash, I definitely did.

Normally, when I'm perusing a dessert menu, there's always one or two things that leap out as demanding of my order. Botanique's tiny but perfectly composed dessert choices all looked equally appealing. After much debating and flipping of coins, I chose the pumpkin option - cashew cream, spiced chai parfait and praline crumb. Where was the titular pumpkin? I guess in the parfait?

Either way, it's the sort of bowl that makes you grateful there are autumns.

As I mentioned, we were the only people in the restaurant for a good chunk of the Sunday lunchtime. This seems a real crime. A friendly, tasty, all-vegan restaurant with barely a customer or two? I get with the economic situation being the way it is, people are probably choosing to eat out less. But if you are planning on heading out to get food on a Sunday lunchtime, make sure you get to that place - the vegan one, the one you've been meaning to get to but haven't quite managed it. It definitely deserves the love.

Botanique
botaniquebrighton.com
31a Western Rd, Brighton and Hove, Hove BN3 1AF
01273 567200

Revealed! Two of my favourite places for amazing vegan-friendly Indian food in Brighton

2024-11-20T12:08:00.000-08:00

If I slipped into an alternate universe where I was forced to eat food from only one country for the rest of my life, I hoped I'd end up in the alternate universe where it was Indian food. It's a cuisine that's naturally veggie and vegan friendly so I'd never go hungry, there's an incredible variety of dishes so I'd never get bored, and it's, well, out-and-out delicious.

Here are two of my favourite places to get great vegan-friendly Indian food in Brighton.

Indian Summer

Whoever invented the idea of the thali, I owe you a debt of gratitude from the bottom of my heart.

Thalis are a chance to try a little bit of everything - lots of tiny pots of deliciousness, rice, bread, pickles, sometimes even dessert for good measure.

I went to Indian Summer just because I was craving a thali, and they do a vegan one.

When I looked round the restaurant, almost everyone in there was eating a thali. Now I know why: I'm happy to report Indian Summer's thali didn't disappoint - it was brimming with tiny delights. There were a tarka dal, channa masala, aloo baignan, vegetable kari, Indian salad, pickle, mango chutney, papad, roti and basmati rice. What more could you want?

It was a thali that was crammed with classics: tarka dal, channa masala, vegetable kari. There's a reason they're classics - what's more satisfying than a comforting helping of dal or a bowl of well-spiced chick peas? Better still, you get to enjoy everything together - when you need something to cut through a rich coconut sauce, you can use a sharp pickle to cut through it, and then head back to poppadoms for a bit of crunch, and then back to your dal again.

Bonus points for Indian Summer for having a couple of vegan dessert choices. I'd love to tell you what they're like, but after eating a whole thali, I really didn't have room for a sip of water, let alone any dessert!

Indian Summer

indiansummerbrighton.co.uk

70 East St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton, BN1 1HQ

01273 711001

Planet India

I went to Planet India for the first time recently and I loved it.

Planet India is all veggie, mostly vegan Indian restaurant. I loved it because the good was great, but that wasn't the only reason I loved it.

One of my reasons for my Planet India crush is they have khaman dhokla, which you don't see on menus often enough for my liking. Khaman dhokla are savoury gram flour cakes, risen with citric acid, which gives them an intriguing sour tang and a spongy light texture. (Hat tip to whoever writes the menu at Planet India. The description for the khaman dhokla is described as 'a savoury sponge cake, surprisingly light and moist. Doesn't sound that great, just trust me please... whatever, I know you are not gonna order it'. Spoiler: I did, and I definitely will do again!)

Another thing I love Planet India for is that you can either get a plate of a single curry, or a plate with two curries side by side. For someone who can never see a menu without wanting to order everything on it, the half-and-half option is clearly a winner.

I chose a Mombai potato curry, because carbs, and tardka dall, because sadly it's not often vegan so it's another thing I jump at the chance to order whenever I see it.

Clearly, this post is sponsored by 'things I love but which you don't see on menus a lot so I feel duty bound to order them when I see them', because I'd like to make an honourable mention of thelpa - chapati type bread infused with fenugreek leaves.

The only downside of Planet India is the view - it looks out onto a bit of scrubby lawn, some sprawling roads and concrete as far as the eye can see. If that's what you're looking at, I recommend turning your chair around and looking into the restaurant: it's really cosy and welcoming - like having dinner in someone's living room. Even better, it's like having dinner in the living room of someone that's really taken great care to make sure you're having a good time and you're well fed with all manner of good, rarely seen delights.

For the quality of the food, and the quality of the service, Planet India seems way too cheap. It's a gift not only for empty bellies but for empty wallets too. Recommended.

Planet India

planetindia.co.uk

4 Richmond Parade, Brighton and Hove, Brighton, BN2 9PH

01273 818149

Where to get your vegan Korean fix in Brighton: Soju delivers on plant-based bibimbap and chicken

2024-11-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

I have a soft spot for bibimbap - the iconic Korean dish of rice covered with any number of beautifully arranged toppings (veggies and tofu if you're a vegan, other things if you're not).

I first discovered via a London restaurant of the same name. I went there loads of times over the years before I left the city (here's my first and frighteningly brief review of the place). Everyone I've ever introduced to the joy of bibimbap (the dish or the restaurant) was an instant fan. Bibimbap (the restaurant, not the dish) opened a second restaurant, which closed in short order when the pandemic took away its City clientele. I remember walking past the shuttered restaurant during lockdown, wondering when the next time I'd be able to share a meal with people in a restaurant would be.

It ended up being a long time before I got to eat bibimbap in a restaurant again - years, in fact. I moved down to Brighton, where Korean restaurants are harder to come by and Korean restaurants that cater for vegans (or so I thought).

Then I discovered Soju, which describes itself as a 'Korean dining pub', has a whole section of Korean vegan dishes, including plant based versions of all the Korean classics. Want vegan japchae? That's there. Vegan spring onion or kimchi pancakes? They're available. Vegan tteokbokki? Yep, all good. And - joy of joys - there's bibimbap too.

We started off with vegan tofu and veggie dumplings, because vegan dumplings are always a good idea. What made these an even better idea was a) they were fried and b) they were covered in a spicy sauce that made them even more delicious.

And then we moved on to two more Korean classics - bibimbap for me, vegan Korean chicken for Mr Flickingthevs.

I mentioned before how much I love bibimbap. It's deceptively simple - some rice, some veggies, some tofu, but it all adds up to something wonderful. It's served in a hot stone bowl for a spot of theatre and so the rice at the bottom goes delightfully crispy and chewy. And there's the spicy sauce - a hearty, warming shot-in-the-arm of gochujang, served on the side so you can choose your own spice level. I whacked in all the gochujang, because why wouldn't you?

Mr Flickingthevs' fried vegan chicken was also a hit. The vegan chicken had a great texture and crisp-fried finish, and a small vat of lightly curried sauce to dip everything in.

There are a few other vegan Korean delights to flag up at Soju Melona are the ice creams of vegan creams: slabs of melon sorbet that's so rich and thick you wonder if something so good can actually be legal. There's also lots of different flavours of soju - the Korean spirit that gives the restaurant its name - on offer. I didn't know that the Jinro brand of soju is vegan, and I've taken great joy is making my way through their stocks.

Soju

sojubrighton.com

135 Western Rd, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 2LA

Phone: 01273 983482