Vegan & Vegetarian

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Why we are a small menu restaurant?

There really are 2 types of restaurants - small menus and big menus.

When I go out, its the first thing I look for. Why? Because I know how hard it is to make each dish. We have 19 at the time of writing in September. It will often go up and down by 1 or 2.

Take our Roast Veggies. Let me explain what goes into it today. Please note - this is just an example, and what we do have will change over time, or maybe this dish will be replaced.

1) Beetroot. We roast beetroots, peel them, and then puree them with say sauce (gluten free).

2) Roast cauliflower, pumpkin & dutch carrots

3) Sorrel - its a lovely green garnish that adds cut and bite

4) Ricotta Salata - naturally gluten free & vegetarian. Lots of cheeses contain rennet, this doesn’t.

5) Hot honey

6) Roasted macadamia nuts

So the one dish isn’t just 1 component, there are 8. Each one takes work. Ordering, roasting, cutting, washing, stocking, storing, throwing out. It’s the difference between a ‘wow’ & ‘oh that really like it was an afterthought’

Why is that important to me as a guest?

Because when you go out, there are no local restaurants that can afford to do that amount of work & keep that amount of ingredient fresh & maintain lots of choice - at the price points we offer.

The only places that can do it with a big menu are the big boys - large restaurants, restaurants that don’t do fresh, or specific cuisines that naturally lean towards many dishes being made from the same ingredients. Think Indian where the same ingredients can be made in 5 dishes.

It means that for Vegans & Vegetarians we don’t have lots of choices. But what we do have we put a lot of care and love and thought into.

Of the 19 dishes we offer in mid september, 11 are appropriate for Vegetarians, 13 for Pescatarians, and 8 / 9 for Vegans. I say 8/9 as there is honey in our bread, and I have had some Vegans who eat honey and others who don’t as I have been told it is a less invasive form of animal product than others.

We’ll change them fairly often also.

Lastly, there are no hidden meat items.

There’s no fish sauces, meat stocks, milks etc in things that are not marked.

A dinner scene with a glass of red wine, a plate of sliced steak with sauce, mashed potatoes, a bowl of meatballs, and a small dish of gravy, all on a wooden table with a fork and knife in the foreground.
A table set with a glass of white wine, a white bowl of tuna tartare topped with grapes and salmon roe, a fork, and a knife, with a sheer curtain in the background.
A dining scene showing a plate with grilled chicken breast, leafy greens, and mashed potatoes on a wooden table, a glass of white wine, a fork, and a knife, with a backdrop of gray walls and purple curtains.
A glass of white wine and a plate with cooked fish fillet garnished with greens on a wooden table, set against a background of a dark wall and pink curtains.

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