Treis Laloun was high on my list of eateries for Athens. It was an all vegan restaurant a little out of the city centre, so it was a bit quieter than some of the other spots we visited. The menu was quite extensive, and it also sold pastries – we had some croissants and cheesy pasties to take away, and found them very convenient and tasty. And we visited the restaurant twice – once for dinner and once for breakfast. We’ll start with dinner.
Halloumi is not something I see very often on menus, so Dr HH and I both wanted to try this. The halloumi itself was covered in balsamic vinegar and pesto and sitting on a slice of tomato and a little fried bread. I honestly wasn’t that impressed with it – for me, neither the taste nor the texture resembled halloumi, which I haven’t had much since going vegan, so I was quite excited about rediscovering it. Dr HH was more impressed, even though he agreed it wasn’t necessarily realistic. We shared this starter and were glad we did – the two servings were very generous! We also felt the main courses could have served two, and took leftovers back to our accommodation for the next day.
I am powerless to resist vegan chicken, so I chose the chicken a la crème for my main. The chicken had a great texture, and there were some tasty bacon bits and meaty mushrooms in there as well, under a flavoursome sauce that had just a hint of sweetness but was well balanced.
Dr HH meanwhile chose the shrimp, which had a good crispy coating and retained a bit of bite underneath all that sauce. The sauce was creamy and very dilly, with a nice amount of fennel. It was all well cooked.
You could choose your accompaniment for each main from three options: sweet potato puree, rice, or fries. We both requested fries which you can see are not fries at all. These round chips are really not for me, I’m afraid.
There was quite an extensive breakfast menu, including a variety of different pancakes, so we returned one morning and both ordered the Bueno pancakes which you can probably deduce from the photo were a bit much. There were three quite thin pancakes with a lot of decadent sweetness thrown on top and in between: chocolate cream, nougat cream, wafers, etc. I quite enjoyed it (but obviously could not finish it), but Dr HH found it just too much and thought it was crying our for a bit of fruit to cut through the richness.
Our evening visit was after an afternoon trip to the temple of Zeus, which you can see was quite heavily scaffolded. Typical, eh? Still, you could see a couple of the pillars standing upright, and I loved seeing the toppled one on the ground there – it looks like it’s been sliced up into equal servings!
Our trip to the Acropolis was my absolute highlight of the trip to Athens. And fortunately there was a vegan eatery not too far away from it! We went to Peas for our next bread, meat, and potatoes extravaganza and we were not disappointed. It’s a small, casual spot with very limited seating, but we were fortunate enough to get a seat.
There was quite a small menu, and Dr HH and I both ordered the same thing: two peas in a pod. It was essentially a sandwich made of two lovely fluffy round pitas, filled with seitan strips, smoked tofu, grilled vegetables, cashew parmesan, mayo, and a bit of lettuce. The giant sandwich was quartered, and topped with chips, which look very pale but were actually alright.
We loved it! The meat was extremely flavoursome, and I found the grilled vegetables a pleasing alternative to the classic salad. It was massive though, as you can see, and eating it as a sandwich was extremely messy. Maybe it would have been better if it were a traditional closed pita, but it’s hard to argue with that beasty portion size when you’re spending the whole day on your feet in the sun.
Later in the afternoon, we went for dessert in another part of town. Caravel had three clearly labelled vegan ice cream options when we visited: pistachio, vanilla, and chocolate orange cinnamon. We simply had to go for the latter! It was really decadent, creamy, and delicious. This is a really central spot (we walked past it a million times), and it was always quite busy, though there was limited outdoor seating so you might have to eat on the move.
Away from the food, you probably don’t need me to tell you that the acropolis is worth seeing. We loved it. The scale was really impressive – there was a lot to see, and some of it was spectacularly well-preserved. Prepare yourself for exposure to the elements if you visit, because nothing is under cover.
We also went to the nearby Acropolis Museum, which houses some more of the relics…and, of course, a lot of replicas because so many of the works are in the British Museum. Later in 2022 we actually did go to the British Museum to see the other half of the sculptures from the Parthenon, and it was really frustrating to see them out of context, so far from where they belong. Every few months there are stories in the news suggesting that steps are being taken to return them to Greece and house them in the Acropolis Museum – let’s hope it finally happens (and is the start of a bigger handover of stolen history).
On our first afternoon in Athens, we decided to climb Lycabettus Hill to try to get our bearings – as well as a tantalising glimpse of the sea! Living in the landlocked Czech Republic takes its toll! You can reach the top via a well-trodden track that circles its way up, so it’s not too steep – but it’s still quite a climb and there’s no shelter from the sun. It’s worth doing if you’re feeling up to it. We enjoyed the view, and it really put us in the mood for our upcoming island adventure. And it certainly made us hungry too, so we were ready for an early dinner.
One of my favourite things about Athens was that eateries opened at a reasonable hour. Most of my holidays tend to be in Italy or Spain where restaurants don’t even open until 8pm – practically bedtime! So we were thrilled that Mama Tierra was open from 1pm. We were looking forward to trying some veganised Greek dishes, and it did not disappoint.
Dr HH got the moussaka – you can’t go to Greece and not have a moussaka, can you?! He loved it – the edges were nice and crispy, and there was a delightful potato layer on the bottom. The tomatoey layer was well seasoned, and the bechamel layer was suitably creamy. You can see that it retained its structural integrity, it was not too sloppy. A really good dish.
I ordered soutzoukaki, which was not a dish I’d tried before (or have seen since). The tomato sauce was pleasant, but lacked a bit of punch. You can’t really see it, but there are some aubergine meatballs hiding in there as well, which tasted nice but lacked texture. The rice was beautifully fragrant, but it’s a bit of a problem if the rice is the best part of the meal (for me, anyway).
I was too full to order a dessert, but Dr HH indulged in the chocolate fudge, which was a massive slab of what we thought was a raw brownie swimming in caramel espresso cream. He couldn’t finish it, which indicates that it was very rich indeed. His verdict was that it was nice, but could have done with something else for texture.
All in all though, we were excited by the menu and pleased with what we tried – though the moussaka was the clear winner. Service was really friendly (and English-friendly), and I would definitely recommend this spot for vegan visitors to Athens.
I am not a big sandwich lover because I quite enjoy eating all my different foods separately, but I do occasionally make an exception and indulge. I will always make such an exception for Sabotage, which is a teeny tiny all vegan spot which is regrettably closing at the end of 2023 – so I’m hastily getting this post up now. They have quite a heavily mock meat menu with burgers and hot dogs, but Dr HH and I have only ever tried the cheesesteaks, because they are simply too good to ignore.
I always go for the seitan cheesesteak, pictured above (it’s slightly squashed in the picture immediately above because it’s been tightly wrapped for takeaway – in the top picture you can see it in all its glory). It’s a lovely bun filled with delicious seitan, peppers, onions, cheese, and barbeque sauce. It does contain pickles as well, though I’ve removed them in mine. It is sloppy to eat, I usually slice it into quarters and eat a piece at a time with my hands. To be honest though, it’s worth making a mess with it. Dr HH always goes for the chilli seitan cheesesteak (in the picture at the top of the page), which is the same but with added jalapenos and a chilli sauce instead of a barbeque one. He finds the spice levels just right.
It’s a really small spot – there are a few indoor tables and a few more outside, but it’s not the most scenic of locations. Rather annoyingly, it’s only open 1-6pm on Saturdays and is totally closed on Sundays, so we’ve tended to limit ourselves to week day visits when we can. It’s been one of our staples and there’s nowhere else in Prague doing the same food, so it’s going to be a big loss when they close down. Pay them a visit before the end of the year if you can!
I’m dipping into my archives for this next series of posts – in April 2022, Dr HH and I took a trip to Greece and had a really beautiful time. We split our time between Athens and Santorini, one of the islands. I really wanted to see the sea and was hoping that the promise of a beautiful island would motivate me through a few days in a city that I’d heard was quite grimy. Sure enough, I felt that Athens was not a particularly pleasant city to get around. It was awful for pedestrians, with really narrow and uneven paths everywhere. And it was generally quite dirty as well. But the historical sites were absolutely top notch, so I would definitely still go back for another visit.
On arrival in Athens, our first stop was for lunch at Vegan Beat. The vegan scene in Athens seemed to be awash with mock meat, bread, and potatoes, all of which was absolutely fine with me – and this was a promising introduction to that world.
I got the space gyros. The mock meat in this case was actually mushroom, which was not that rare on our wanders in Athens. I love the texture of a nicely cooked mushroom, so this was right up my street, and they were also nicely seasoned. Crucially for me, there was also not an abundance of salad. I’m sick of ordering a wrap and finding it’s half salad, give me the good stuff! See how thick and tasty that bread looks as well, it was a real treat.
In the background you can see a spiral potato, which we both ordered as our side. It’s a nice idea for a twist on a traditional chip, but to be honest it wasn’t as good as chips or crisps would have been. Also the beet sauce was a little too sweet for my tastes. Still, it looked like a fun holiday treat.
Dr HH got the lamajoun, which was a new dish for us – basically mince with hummus in a wrap. His verdict was that it was tasty, but messy to eat because of poor structural integrity, which you can probably guess from the photo. Still perfectly passable though.
The vibrant drink you see in the background was a turmeric lemonade, which Dr HH found delicious and different from anything he’d had before. I had a green cola, and while I appreciate independent brands, I can’t help it – I love a proper CocaCola on holiday!
Something else I love on holiday is dining outdoors, and this place did indeed have outdoor seating. Unfortunately it was on a busy street, so it wasn’t a super relaxing time, but the tables were set quite a way back from the traffic, so that helped. It was a very English-friendly establishment. There was no table service – we ordered at the counter indoors, they called us in to collect our dishes when they were ready, and it all went smoothly.
We followed it up with a trip to the archaeological site of Keramikos, which is one of the many historical sites in the city centre. This one was very pleasant for wandering around as an introduction to Athens – not the most spectacular spot we would visit, but a nice gentle start. We enjoyed seeing the wildlife (including tortoises which were roaming around) thriving amongst these ancient walls and statues – some parts were replicas, some were real. There was a small museum on the site as well. It really got us in the mood for the Acropolis, which was what we were most looking forward to.
All in all, this was a satisfying start to the holiday!
Let’s resume Dr HH’s journey through Gothenburg. You can picture me typing away at my computer while writing my dissertation, my phone buzzing with his latest updates.
The next day I kicked off my day with a trip to Haga on the hunt for a vegan cinnamon bun. Haga pops up in all the tourist guides as a must-visit district but it was really just a long street with lots of cafes and shops. Maybe it’s a good spot for some local souvenirs but it wasn’t really what I was after. I did get my hands on a GIANT vegan cinnamon bun at Cafe Husaren. This place is a tourist magnet, it claims to be the inventor of the Hagabullen (giant cinnamon buns) and was absolutely heaving when I passed by the previous afternoon, so I made sure I arrived nice and early in the day.
This thing was the size of my head and weighed around 500g (my Kindle is in the photo there to give some sense of scale). It was a tasty bun, lots of sugar and cardamom with a good sticky cinnamon filling too. Unsurprisingly, it got a bit samey after a while and I got a bit bored. It was good to see the full size vegan option available but I’ve definitely had much better treats of this type, and the coffee wasn’t great either.
My next stop was a trip to the Botanical Gardens. I was feeling a bit warm so decided against going into any of the hot houses and just went for a little wander round the outdoor areas. It was a very nice and relaxing place, and a bit more rugged and outdoorsy than other botanical gardens I’ve been to, so it added a bit of an extra sense of exploration and adventure. The garden leads straight into some hiking paths that make up part of huge multi day trails but I didn’t have time for any of that today because…
I had a day ticket for the Way Out West festival where Blur were headlining! This was a bit of luck really as I had originally planned to visit the week before but changed my mind when I was actually booking my tickets and I don’t remember why. One of the exciting things about the festival, beyond the music, was the fact that it was completely vegetarian with plenty of vegan options available. They had some big name local chefs doing fine dining tasting menus but sadly they were only suitable for vegetarians. Maybe in the future they’ll get a vegan option on the go too.
Oatly were there with a promotional area giving away coffee and soft serve ice cream. The soft serve was very much how I remember dairy soft serve being and I couldn’t resist getting chilli threads as a topping. I also managed to snaffle some free Oatly socks for Ms. HH by waiting in a queue forever (okay, actually only about 10 minutes) and watching an Oatly promotional video.
Like all good festivals these days, there was a huge range of food on offer and lots of places did have vegan options. For my evening meal I settled on the Babemba food truck. This a West African restaurant with vegan choices, and at the festival almost everything on offer was vegan. The Babemba restaurant popped on my Happy Cow searches and I had considered going there anyway, so eating at the food truck seemed like a great idea. There were a few different options available or I could pay a bit more and get a mixed plate, so mixed plate it was!
The bowl had a farini (a nice crispy donut with a soft centre), okra spenat gryta (okra and spinach fried with a load of aromatics and spices), tiga (a peanut stew with various vegetables in it), and nandji (a tomato stew with some beans and pulses), and it was all served with two types of rice and I got a blob of chilli sauce – this was incredibly hot. It was quite late into my day and I was tired, so my notes and memories for this are a bit sparse. The one thing I can say without any doubt is that it was all absolutely delicious. I remember the peanut stew in particular standing out as being very tasty.
Throughout the day I saw a few acts (Arlo Parks, Pusha T, Amyl and the Sniffers) but I was really here to see Blur and it was worth it. An enjoyable set with lots of hits and a few new songs, just a shame it went on until midnight. That is way past my bedtime!
The next day I had eyed up breakfast at En Deli Haga. This is a vegetarian buffet place that I had been past earlier in the week and I spotted that they offered a breakfast plate with vegan options. With not a lot else to choose from at breakfast time, I decided to go for it. I went in and ordered the breakfast plate without any information about what it would be and was a bit disappointed when it came out. Much like Ms HH, I don’t really want to be paying a restaurant to put slices of fruit and vegetables on my plate. She hates watermelon so would have been absolutely fuming at this. (I did in fact commiserate with Dr HH when he sent me this picture – Ms HH.)
Most things are easily recognisable from the photo. There was tahini and fig jam in a couple of pots at the top, a lentil ball in the top corner, and some hummus in the rectangular pot. Everything on the plate was tasty. The fruit and vegetables were fine, the cheese slices were a pretty standard tasting Violife-style cheese, the spreads and the olives were perfectly nice too. I enjoyed the hummus, it was a bit chunky and really well seasoned with a good amount of garlic and a nice chilli kick. The lentil ball was excellent, I best described it as a tarka dal paté. It was thick and spreadable and was really well seasoned. I would definitely have preferred more bread over the fruit and salad though.
I didn’t really have much planned for this day, so I worked stuff out as I went along. I took in some of the outdoor spaces in the city and paid a visit to the Design Museum. Again, this is probably somewhere I wouldn’t have normally gone to but I was feeling a bit tired and it was included in the museum pass I had bought, so I thought it would be a nice way to have a relaxing hour or two. It was the temporary exhibition that really stood out for me here, there was a lot of interesting textile work involved in making lots of fun outfits. I didn’t find the rest of the museum too interesting and wouldn’t be rushing back if I visited again. They did have a nice café downstairs so I stopped for a coffee whilst I watched the end of a Women’s World Cup match on my phone. I didn’t look at the food too closely but this place did pop up on Happy Cow as having decent vegan options. I also popped into the Natural History Museum which had some good skeletons on show but there was also a taxidermy blue whale that people used to be able to sit in. It looked pretty tacky and distasteful and just felt really disrespectful.
For my last meal of the holiday I had booked in at Yammy Kitchen. I had tried to get in a few days earlier but it was fully booked, so I made sure I had booked ahead for today. It’s a Japanese and Korean restaurant with clearly labelled vegan options and I was mostly lured in by the promise of mapo tofu. It’s a bit of a confusing place where you have to order using the QR code and online app. After being pointed to my table, I went straight to the bathroom so I didn’t actually get these explicit instructions and sat for a while reading my book. When nobody turned up, I realised what I needed to do. I already knew what I wanted before I had stepped foot in the place and quickly ordered agedashi tofu for a starter and mapo tofu for my main.
It all came out together, not what I was expecting but there was no clear way for me to communicate this to my machine interface. The agedashi tofu was delicious battered and deep fried silken tofu, but it was not agedashi tofu. This had quite a thick crispy batter rather than the expected light crunchy corn flour coating. The mapo was very enjoyable. It had a good amount of spice and that nice Szechuan tingle going on, and there was a respectable amount of tofu with a good texture. I was a bit put off by the crunch of the peanuts in there which didn’t quite work for me. There were also some peas, seaweed, and mushrooms in there to provide a bit of variety to each mouthful. It wasn’t as good as the one in New York, it didn’t quite give me the same level of Szechaun numbing feeling and I didn’t think the choice of other ingredients in the bowl worked as well. The extra portion of rice in the photo was completely unnecessary and ordered accidentally as I didn’t spot the mapo actually came with rice.
The next morning I was on my way back to Prague after a thoroughly enjoyable few days away. I’d recommend a trip to Gothenburg, the islands were absolutely stunning and I enjoyed the sights and museums I visited. The vegan options were pretty good on the whole, there was a good variety of restaurants and lots of options to choose from. I did struggle a bit to find places that I wanted to go that were open at breakfast and lunch times so had to make some compromises on my food choices. Why don’t places open at a reasonable hour?!
While I spent the summer labouring away over my dissertation, Dr HH made the most of his holidays with a solo jaunt to Gothenburg. Here is a special Dr HH guest post to tell you all about it!
Dr HH is back! It wasn’t long after Ms. HH’s return that she was tapping me up for a guest post and a solo summer trip to Gothenburg this summer provides the perfect opportunity for me to oblige.
Flights between Gothenburg and Prague were incredibly cheap this summer so I decided to go for an early August trip. I booked this back in June, fully expecting Prague to be unbearably hot at the start of August and thought that a little trip north to slightly cooler climes would be the perfect break. When I left Prague it was about 15 ⁰C and raining, so my master plan wasn’t quite perfect.
I arrived into the city at about 8am and was ready for a little something to eat to keep me going between my 4am breakfast and a more regular lunch time. My online search didn’t lead to me many places open at that time so I went for a quick eat at Happy Me in the central station. This was a little café that was gluten free and almost all vegan offering sandwiches, salads, bowls, etc. I think all of the dishes were vegan but you could add salmon as an extra to some things. I had the veggie toast and it was fine. There was pesto, vegan cheese, a bit of tempeh and some tomato. There wasn’t a huge amount of flavour from anything but it did the job as a light vegan bite to tide me over until lunch time.
After my snack and a rest, I headed off to the Gothenburg City Museum to learn about the history of Gothenburg. This wouldn’t have been my first choice but it was raining outside and this was the first attraction that opened in the city at the late hour of 10am.
It was the 400th anniversary of the city being founded and a lot of the museum was dedicated to taking you through how the city had evolved. There was a good exhibition about objects and places that were significant to the residents, with people being allowed to submit their own suggestions for consideration. The big draw was a replica of a Viking boat, apparently the only one of its kind to be found intact. I got into a disagreement with another visitor here; I was reading the information plaque about the boat and I was asked to move out of the way because I was in their photo. I rather crossly told them that I would not be organising my museum visit around their photos and told them off for being extremely rude for asking me to do so.
After dealing with the ridiculousness of the other museum goers I was feeling hungry, so my next stop at lunchtime was at Sayur, an all vegan Indonesian restaurant. It was quite a small space with only two options on the menu, a salad and a mixed plate (Nasi Campur). I love a mixed plate! The idea of trying a little bit of everything and making my own wild and exciting combinations is exactly what I am looking for.
On the plate I had a corn fritter, noodles, a bit of aubergine in a tomato sauce, some nicely cooked tofu, fried tempeh, jackfruit in a peanut sauce (think gado-gado salad), a blob of chilli sauce, salad, tempeh brittle, and a big pile of nicely seasoned rice with more peanut sauce in the middle. Everything tasted great. There was a really good variety in the plate which led to a new and exciting mouthful each time. The tempeh brittle was sticky, sweet, and salty, and was like nothing I have ever had before. I really enjoyed the peanut sauce, it was sweet and well spiced. Previous versions I’ve had in gado-gado salads have just been very sweet.
After lunch I paid a visit to the Gothenburg Museum of Art. I had read that they had some famous paintings from some of the impressionists, along with a good sculpture hall and a selection of local art. This museum was excellent. They had some great stuff from well known artists such as Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso. The sculpture hall was filled with modern art that I thought was extremely fun. The ground floor had quite an interesting photography exhibit. The temporary exhibition was about the Gothenburg colourist movement. I don’t know a lot about art but I do love visiting a gallery and having a good look around. When people ask me about the art I like I always say I like it brightly coloured and a bit blurry, so this exhibition was absolutely perfect for me.
I had a little wander around the city before working out where to go for my dinner, and stopped for a coffee (Oatly was available almost everywhere as far as I could tell ) at Cafe Jacob. They did have a few vegan sweet treats but I stuck with just a drink while I made my plans. I chose to go to Bastard Burgers for my dinner. This is a bit of a chain with restaurants in multiple cities in Sweden and in some of the other neighbouring Scandinavian countries. It is a fast food style place with vegan options – most of the burgers on the menu had a vegan version and all the sides and drinks were clearly labelled too. Despite being fast food style, it took quite a long time for me to get my burger, that may have been because there were a couple of big orders ahead of me so I just had to be patient.
I had the Beyond Los Angeles burger and it was a bit hit and miss. It was a bit small, with a 65g Beyond Meat patty (we have Beyond Meat sausage sandwiches at home and they normally have two 100 g sausages in there). There was sweetness from some caramelised onions, which was pleasant, some bacon that I didn’t really notice until it fell out of the bun, a spicy dressing, and some jalapenos that added a bit of heat but I felt the whole thing could be spicier. The crinkle fries were excellent, nice and crispy and well salted. I washed it all down with an Oreo milkshake, it was enjoyable but maybe just a little bit too sweet for me. If I were back in Gothenburg I would probably try somewhere else for my burger fix.
For day 2 in Gothenburg, I planned a long day out on some of the islands of the Southern Archipelago. A couple of the islands did have listings on Happy Cow but they didn’t quite fit into my schedule, so I got through the day on my snack pack and a bit of a resupply in one of the little supermarkets. I did spot a shop which had some vegan Magnum flavours that I hadn’t seen before, but I was getting close to the end of my day out and by that time I very much had my eyes on a cold, fizzy drink. It was a great day of walking in perfect conditions, sunshine and 18⁰C, and I definitely recommend it as a day trip, but don’t go for the food!
By the time I got back to the city, I had been out for about 12 hours, done about 45,000 steps, and walked over 30km. I was ready for a big meal, so I went to Blackbird. This is the oldest vegan place in the city and prides itself on making everything in house – cheeses, bread, burger patties, sauces, everything! It’s also a very busy place, I had tried to get in the night before but it was fully booked, so I made sure I booked ahead this time.
To start, I had the cheese plate. It came with 3 cheeses: a creamy dessert cheese, a smoked cheese, and a hard cheese with apricot and caramelised red onion. The creamy dessert cheese was excellent, it was smooth and creamy and had quite a strong taste that was a bit pungent. I probably wouldn’t want it in my dessert. The other two cheeses were quite similar to each other, they tasted good but the textures were a bit grainy. The accompaniments were all good: a crisp, seedy cracker, a little round cracker that reminded me of an Indian Mathi, and a slice of sourdough that was covered in herb butter. There was a rhubarb marmalade with a hint of earl grey (that I couldn’t pick), and some red onion marmalade which was more like some lightly pickled slices of red onion. They were both enjoyable accompaniments, but nothing wild. It was a hearty plate for a starter, which was reflected in the price, with it being about 50% more expensive than the other available starters.
For mains, the menu didn’t excite me too much. There were a couple of quite salady looking options on the menu, so I shunned them and went for the summer burger: a seitan burger in sourdough bread with mayo, lettuce, rocket pesto, and homemade mozzarella. Of course, I paid extra to get the fries too. The patty was fine, nice and crispy on the outside, with a good savoury taste. The mozzarella was very enjoyable with a good texture and taste. It was a tasty burger overall and I preferred it to the one from the night before. The chips were the real star of the show, they were round crinkle cuts that were folded into a V shape. They were incredibly crispy and perfectly seasoned, I could have eaten them all night long. I was a bit too full for dessert and again nothing really jumped out at me as a must try. I enjoyed the meal and would definitely go back on another visit if the menu looked a bit more enticing to me.
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, featuring another mixed plate, some spicy ice cream, and a cinnamon snail the size of your head!
This was our second visit to Gauthier Soho, which is an all vegan fine dining restaurant – you can read about our first visit here. There were three of us in attendance this time, with Mother HH as a non-vegan participant who was heartily impressed with the evening. Once again, we went for the eight course menu.
We got two canapes to start with. This one was crudités with lemon butter tahini and a leaf of some kind. The leaf overpowered everything else, but the after taste was quite pleasant. This wasn’t really a popular bite at our table, but we were not discouraged.
The tart pissaladiere was much better! The case was thin and crumbled away when you bit into it. It was filled with caramelised onion, tapenade, and tomato, and it was really delicious. Confidence fully restored!
I have learned that I absolutely love a bread course in a fancy restaurant, and this one was no exception. This dish has basically survived since our visit the previous year, but it has improved in that time! The brioche was now actually like a croissant, really buttery and flaky and delicious, with a nice crispy coat. I would have been happy eating it on its own, but it came with feta, pico de gallo and coriander oil, which was a really fresh and zingy combination. Overall, this course was absolutely sublime!
Next came a leek terrine. The leek was wrapped in seaweed and topped with a tapioca cracker. Alongside it we had beurre blanc with nigella seeds and an elegant scoop of seaweed caviar. The leek was really soft and quite mild – in fact, all of the flavours were quite mild, with the exception of the beurre blanc which was very rich and delicious, and the real highlight of the dish.
The heritage beetroot course may have been a bit high concept for me. It featured baked beetroot, cherry and fennel marmalade, chocolate beetroot puree, and parsley oil. I always try to have a little nibble of every element on its own at some point to see how everything tastes, and I really did not care for the individual elements here. As a whole, however, it was rich, delicious, and earthy. We all especially enjoyed the puree which started out with quite a strong chocolate flavour and ended up with the beetroot notes.
I felt like I was back on safer ground with the tomato ravioli. The ravioli were really intense with a strong flavour of tomatoes, and the basil sauce was bursting with flavour as well. We received a flute of tomato consomme as a palate cleanser, and it was really punchy and fun. I love a good tomato course in a fancy restaurant, it always works out well for me! We all found this course really tasty, though we queried its description as ravioli. This is not the correct shape for ravioli, surely?!
The fleur de courgette farcie was, as we declared (or whispered to ourselves, lest we be overheard by the lovely servers), a bit of a farce. It was all very bland. The courgette flower was stuffed with smoked tofu, but had none of that lovely smokiness to it. The saffron bouillabaisse was really bland too. There was a chunk of alleged potato and courgette rosti, which was totally soft, with none of the crispiness that you’d expect of a rosti. There’s a crouton hiding at the back of the picture which was really crusty and good, so that’s something. But the plain courgette was the most flavoursome part of the dish for all of us, which is a real shame.
Fortunately, this was followed by the potato rose, which was one of the highlights of the feast. You can’t really see, but the potato is rolled up with a rose and served with lots of delicious things like chard, girolles, beans, bacon, and jus de roti vegetal (which also included bacon and truffle). It was very savoury and very delicious!
To transition to the sweet courses, we had a Kalamata olive cheesecake, which split the crowd at our table. It had a biscuit base, cream cheese, tapenade, and a caramelised olive (we were also told it was topped with a “herb salad”, which feels a bit generous for two stems, but to be fair, that’s all the salad I care for!). It was very cheesy and very rich. The caramelised olive was too sweet for me, and a sweet olive is quite an unpleasant thought. Dr HH loved it though!
I always feel a bit cheated if my first course of dessert is some kind of sorbet, so I was pleased to get a proper treat for the strawberry course. We had strawberries with lemon verbena topped with candy floss which was blow torched at the table, giving it an incredible crunchy texture. The dish was sugary and sweet, but also light and refreshing, and I would happily eat it again.
And the dessert proper was dark chocolate, as it should be. Although it already looks quite small, it was made up of multiple layers, including: a biscuit base, cream cheese, caramel, ganache, macadamia and pecan pracline, and a chocolate shell. On top of that was a bit of crème fraiche and some gold leaf. It sounds like a lot, but it was all perfectly balanced and really delicious. It’s like a dessert made up of all the great dessert buzzwords and somehow it manages to fit together and be decadent but not too much. Quite incredible.
I didn’t really have room for any petit fours at this point, but you can’t really say no, can you? The ones on the right were peach sponge and they were disappointingly claggy. The lemon sponge on the left was much lighter.
There were a couple of misses for us in this meal, which is a shame, but the hits were proper hits, and the overall experience makes it worthwhile for me. I hope to be back again one day for another exciting culinary adventure!
It has been exciting over the last few years to see fine dining restaurants slowly warming up to veganism. By the time I learned that this was happening, we were deep into the pandemic with no possibility of travelling to the few restaurants that were starting to lead the way. I went to a couple of fancy restaurants in Hong Kong back in 2011 and even just the vegetarian options were very disheartening: grilled asparagus in one, risotto in another. So, what a treat that the fine dining world is moving on now and us vegans get to share in these culinary wonders! Gauthier Soho in London reinvented itself as an all vegan restaurant in 2021, and we made our first visit the following summer. It was a delight!
You can choose between a 5 course and an 8 course option (well, you can’t really choose – it depends on what time you’ve booked in for). Dr HH and I went for 8 courses, because if you’re going to do something you might as well do it properly. We had no regrets.
There were two canapes, the thin tomato tart ‘BLT’ and the aubergine, celery, and capers. I’m not wild about celery, but the other two flavours made up for it. The tarts were a delight, with some intriguing textures along with the burst of tomato.
Next came the dish of the day, the kouglof brioche which was served with creamy feta and tasty pico de gallo. This was beautiful! At the time, it was the best bread we’d ever tried (since usurped by Eleven Madison Park), a really incredible bake. And the feta and pico de gallo were fresh and flavoursome. It was a perfect combination, and I would have loved another helping.
The roast fennel was next, which included Szechuan pickled blackberry, beans, fennel, and blackcurrant leaf tea. This was a bit of a miss for me. I struggle to eat anything with that long, stringy texture of these leafy bits because I’m always so worried about choking on them, and I think a little fruit goes a long way in a savoury dish, so this was a bit too fruity from the blackberries for my tastes.
You can never get away without being served risotto, can you? This course was called black antipodean melanosporum truffle, and it was good as risotto goes. It was creamy and well seasoned. After being vegetarian in the 1990s though, I’ve long since hit my limit with risottos. You’ve had one, you’ve had them all!
The rather excitingly named barbecued loin of kohlrabi came next, with samphire and sea broth and sake beurre blanc. This was more of a return to form, with some fun textures and tastes. The beurre blanc was decadent.
The next course, simply named peach, was the pre-dessert and consisted of green shiso and lime sorbet. As you would hope from this course, it was refreshing and quite light, paving the way for the main event…
What a dessert! This was the norvegienne brulee, which is one of my all time favourite desserts. The base was a sable biscuit which was really delicious. The strawberry was fresh and full of flavour. The meringue was an absolute delight! I’m not sure I’ve had meringue that good before or after. I usually knock a point off for a pudding if it’s got no chocolate, but this one was absolutely top notch.
We did get some chocolate at the end those, with these dark chocolate petit fours. The cake was nice, and the macaron was excellent. It seems like macarons have gone a bit out of fashion since their 200s heyday, but I still find them impressive.
All in all, it was quite the feast! Service was very good, and the pacing of the courses was just right. We left feeling full, but not uncomfortably so. I always feel a bit concerned about dress codes at places like these, but however casually we dress, we are almost never the most casual – there were other people in shorts and trainers, very obviously arriving after a full day of touristing. We enjoyed the experience so much that we went back in summer 2023 with Mother HH in tow – more on that next time.
It’s been a very long time since we’ve checked in on the Prague vegan scene! A lot has happened in the last three years, unsurprisingly. Some old staples have closed down, some like Moment, Chutnej, and Strecha have had a revamp, and a few of the old classics are still thriving, like Pastva and the Dim Sum Spot. And of course, there are new places aplenty to catch up on, with croissants, cheesesteak sandwiches, book-themed cocktails, and much more to come. But let’s start, as always, with breakfast.
It is always exciting to see a full English breakfast on a menu in Europe – but rare to find one without salad. These healthy Europeans can’t resist adding a handful of leaves, which totally flies in the face of what a proper full English is all about! So when I heard from a fellow Brit that there’s a salad-free vegan option in Prague now, I couldn’t wait to try.
And the rumours were true! I’m not sure about the little microgreens, but still, it’s a big step up from the usual version you get in this city. Oak is pretty central in Prague, and also quite small – they were almost fully booked when we visited, and we had to sit at the bar. It seems like they are generally not great at labelling the vegan options in their menu, but they do differentiate between meaty, vegetarian, and vegan full English breakfasts (though Dr HH was outraged to note that only the meaty version is available extra large – hook a greedy vegan up!).
There’s no vegan butter, so the two slices of toast are served with olive oil, which is not something I’ve personally ever put on toast – instead, we both decided to assemble avo toasts for ourselves, with pleasing results. The grilled tomato was unremarkable, as always, but it was at least hot which is not always the case (perhaps that’s another European twist on the classic). I am a huge fan of hash browns, and these were absolutely perfectly crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside – a real winner. The mushrooms were cooked in white wine and you could taste it. They felt like more of an ‘evening’ mushroom to me than a breakfast one, where I’d prefer salt and pepper and maybe one herb if pushed. The sausages were good – we didn’t recognise the brand, but they looked a bit too uniform to be homemade. I did not try any of the brown sauce, but Dr HH enjoyed it. The beans were homemade rather than tinned, and they were a touch too sweet and fruity for me, but still pleasant. It might have been nice to have some tofu scramble on there, but this was a good plate nevertheless.
Despite my pickiness, this is probably the best full English I’ve had in Europe and it’s a really exciting addition to the Prague breakfast scene.
Do you have any controversial takes on the full English breakfast?
Herbivores' Heaven 