Besides the cooler weather of northern Europe, the main attraction of our trip to Gothenburg was the Way Out West festival. It’s a three day music festival right in the city centre (no camping), with all vegetarian catering. I hoped this meant the vegan options would be amazing, but to be honest they were a little hard to find. A few of the eateries listed their menus on the app in advance, with vegan options labelled, but many either didn’t list anything or didn’t use vegan labelling. The stands and vans in the festival also didn’t always use vegan labelling either, meaning we had to wait in line and ask what (if anything) was vegan. The food we got was good, and it was nice not to smell meat being cooked anywhere, but I was hoping a meat-free festival would be a bit more vegan-friendly.
On our first day we went to Ish and Chips, which just had one item on the menu (fish and chips), which could be veganised – that just meant removing the tartare sauce, no replacement. The fish was an off the shelf item, it had a great fishy texture and nice crisp batter. It didn’t taste very strongly of fish, but they made some effort and the dill helped. The chips were really crispy and tasty. The mushy peas were nicely seasoned but fridge-cold, which was a shame. They were located in a really convenient spot where we could sit in the shade at a table and eat, while also listening to Zara Larsson bangers on the main stage.
Bar Bez Mleczny was high on our list, as this is an actual all-vegan restaurant in Gothenburg with a stand at the festival too. They had three pancake options available. We both got the halv special, which was a pancake wrap filled with potato, sausage, roasted onion, and pickle relish sauce. The pancake was a really good texture and it held the filling well, it didn’t get too soggy. The filling was so tasty, with strong flavours from the sausage (like a hot dog sausage) and pickle. This was my favourite dish we tried at the festival. It was in a nice quiet spot by the smallest stage at the festival, but it didn’t have any seating – fortunately, we managed to nab a spot on some steps.
And on our last day we went to the Gapa Deli food truck and checked if they had any vegan options. They just had one: a sticky Korean BBQ wrap. It was packed with flavour. There was some good heat from the kimchi, with a nice flavour from the sesame mayo. There was some vegan mince and various salad bits in there for some crunch. It was a tasty wrap that got a bit messy, but we managed not to embarrass ourselves too much. This was in a similar quieter area, but very close to some benches, meaning it was a bit easier to find a spot to sit an eat.
The festival itself was a hoot! The last time I went to a festival, I was a teenager, so this was pretty different. There were five stages of various sizes, so it’s a big event with a strong line-up, and we had a full programme of performers we wanted to see. Our highlights were Lorde, Anna von Hausswolff, and Nick Cave. Generally it was a well-organised event. I loved that there were free water bottle refill spots, and reasonable public transport connections at the end of the night. I was absolutely astonished by the late nights though – on the second night, the headliner didn’t even come on until 11pm and played until almost 1am. Absolutely mad! Even more shocking, there is another part of the festival called Stay Out West, where after the outdoor event closes, more bands are playing at indoor venues around the city and your festival wristband can get you in. That’s right, not even starting until after midnight! We obviously retreated to our hotel immediately after the outdoor event finished each night, just about managing to stagger in before falling asleep.
