Well done for putting this together. What is disappointing is how few vegetarian restaurants there are! For such a large city you would expect a few more places on the map yet they are so few and far between.
My default option when there is nothing veggie specific is to eat some place Indian. Plenty of Indian restaurants do understand that vegetarianism is the way even if they do have dead animal dishes on the menu for those encultured from an early age to eat 'meat'. It would be helpful if the best Indian restaurants were on the list too.
One thing that does surprise me about the few vegetarian restaurants that are in London is the clientele. Places like Mildreds are packed night after night, and the punters seem that bit more vibrant, healthy, better looking, articulate and youthful than you would normally expect to find when eating out.
More generally, I think that something has to change regarding vegetarianism in London, much like how things have changed regarding cycling in London. As a society we cannot go on eating variants of endangered species on toast for every meal, it is just not on or necessary. Meat eaters need to lighten up a bit and put some variety into their diet.
Why can't the variety of vegetarian cuisine in London be a tourist attraction? Why can't house prices be that bit higher just because they are in an area where there is an excellent choice of vegetarian restaurants? (In the same way that being on a bicycle route adds to the value of a property.) Why can't we have some version of the 'Bake Off' on TV that is about vegetarian food, to celebrate it rather than be all preachy about how evil the meat industry is? Aside from Hitler, why is it that nobody knows of anyone famous for being vegetarian? This is particularly weird when so many celebrities, athletes, respected thinkers and others that people aspire to and respect are actually vegetarian. Where is the 'Boris' or 'Jamie Oliver' of the vegetarian cause?
Going back to the cycling situation we have had a culture shift in cycling and attitudes towards it that has not pissed off motorists. Even if they don't cycle they don't get uppity about those that do. We need something along the same lines for vegetarianism in London.
Anyway, I hope you too have ideas on how attitudes towards vegetarianism could change in London, it would be great if you could say so on your site.
>> My default option when there is nothing veggie specific is to eat some place Indian.
Be very careful with this - most Indian dishes are made with ghee (butter), yoghurt or cream, paneer (cheese), etc. Some aren't, but make sure you ask or the restaurant specifically says that it's vegan and not just vegetarian.
My wife and I are "vegan" in that we try not to eat animal products. But what's made us able to do it for 2 years now is the flexibility we give ourselves. For us it's mostly not an ethical choice, so we don't feel bad when a sandwich comes with a slice of cheese, or if there is only pizza to eat at a party, or whatever.
It would be way to difficult, and just not worth it, to be strict about being vegan to a t. So, if you are vegan for reasons other than ethics/morals then I'd strongly recommend you accept some animal products in your diet to make issues like "Is there butter in my chana masala?" a non issue.
It's really not difficult at all to be completely vegan. And whether it's worth it or not depends on your reasons for adopting a plant-based diet. Of course if it's for health reasons, it really doesn't matter if you get some animal products from time to time.
I've been doing it for 8 years without any flexibility. It's just silly to pretend that it's not feasible.
It's difficult in that you can't go out to a normal dinner without being really careful about what you eat. For instance, if you go to a normal restaurant (not one catering to vegans) and order a salad and ask for no cheese, but they bring you a salad that has cheese, or has croutons that are obviously all buttered up, or something else. Now you have to send it back and wait for them to make you a new one. For a lot of people that's fine. They're happy to get exactly what they want and to wait for it. For me it's not worth the effort, concern, stress or whatever. I just eat the salad.
So yeah, if you aren't bothered by interrogating every waiter at every restaurant you ever go to and returning food regularly, sure...it's not hard to be vegan. I'd rather live mostly vegan and not sweat the small stuff.
This is only true if you go to restaurants that serve dairy-heavy cuisines.
Go to any normal Chinese or Vietnamese or Thai restaurants and it's pretty hard to not find vegan foods on the menu. Mock duck, Buddha's delight, wood ear salad, stir fried soybeans and fermented cabbage, red cooked tofu and mushroom, braised seitan in soy sauce, eggplant in black bean sauce, bok choy in garlic sauce, etc etc -- these are all just normal dishes that are also vegan. The restaurant wouldn't even have to make any special accommodations for you.
This is deeply misleading. You are being flexible, by not trying to think to ahard about what you eat.
The most commmon definition of vegan is "produced without the inflicting suffering on animals". Some dairy/egg/meat free diets use "vegan" as label of convenience. (No one's allergies literally fall along the boundary of "all animal products are unhealthy for me")
Many sugar varieties are not vegan (bone char).
Many beers and wines are not vegan (Isinglass from fish).
Many bagels aren't vegan (L-cysteine from feathers).
Palm oil is not vegan (orangutan habitat destruction).
"Not difficult to be vegan" makes an arbitrary set of simplifying assumptions, namely "Is there a piece of an animal obviously visible in my food). It's not that different from having an occasional piece of cheese.
I'd second this. I read the word vegan as being 100% vegetarian with that being practically impossible to attain. But it's something aim for.
I think I was overtly strict for the first decade of being vegan. Going to the extreme. Consulting the Animal Free Shopper with each purchase.
These days I don't beat myself up so much about it. I'll even take a local ale (probably non-vegan) over a bottled lager. I'll avoid heavily packaged products even if they are vegan. I'll avoid flown in exotic veg.
I think you've got to find a line that you are comfortable with and be prepared to move it.
From the vegan society:
A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animals - no meat, milk, eggs or honey, for example. A vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.
If you take:
A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals.
I'd take that and read it with an emphasis on 'tries'. Easier said than done.
In my mind most steps towards being 100% vegetarian is good. I know meat eaters that are careful to source their meat, and are actually mainly vegan except for say eating meat at the weekend. Who just as much have an issue with some agricultural and farming practices. The only difference between us is that I'm not comfortable with murder for my own personal gain where I can avoid it.
Feasable for some maybe. I'd find it jolly well hard living in some places and very easy in others. Eastern Europe, and heck, a lot of Europe is difficult (if you don't have access to a kitchen).
I've ended up stranded in parts of the UK, where about the only option on the menu is to eat chips and salad. That gets a little boring. In Scotland I was even served powdered potato mash! In Italy I was constantly subject to ridicule. At least near the med there are vegetable options.
On the flip side, to many Indians, "vegetarian" means egg-free, though oddly, it may include fish dishes.
The special treatment of fish varies across parts of India, but the concept that eggs are non-vegetarian is fairly standard there (to a lesser extent abroad).
That might be true for people who hail from certain coastal communities (like Bengal, Orissa, etc.) but more often than not, "Vegetarian" means No eggs, No Fish, No meat.
To be fair, I don't think the OP uses the word 'vegan' anywhere in his post. My vegetarian friends often get irritated when people confuse them for vegans. "Yes, of course I eat eggs. Yes, of course I drink milk"
"Yes, of course you should know the details of my diet based on one jargon word that means different things to different people but which I use to declare my deep-seated yet hastily-constructed beliefs."
Thanks for your comments; I'm glad you liked it. I'm adding places that I know & have eaten at, so the data is a little more sparse than it will be. I'm also going to add more "high street" places; I'd like it to be a resource that answers several questions:
* Where can I go for a nice vegetarian/vegan meal?
* Where can I go for a nice meal that doesn't exclude my veggie friend?
* I'm at place X and I'm starving. Where can I get something vegan to eat nearby?
Personally, I think that London is awesome for veggies & vegans. There's at least 10 specifically vegetarian restaurants that are really nice, and many other hole-in-the-wall places that aren't good for dates but are still serving good food. More and more high street chains are vegan-friendly. More and more places are specifically marking vegan-friendly dishes on their menu. (I also think that the reason that Mildred's has a young, vibrant clientele is because of its location in the heart of Soho, rather than because it's vegetarian.)
My aim isn't to change attitudes towards veganism or vegetarianism; my aim is to make it more accessible. I want to help the newly-vegan person who doesn't know that they can get a quick snack from Wasabi. I want to help the manager who's got a vegetarian staff member and is trying to find somewhere nice for the Christmas meal. And I'm trying to help veggies throughout London find new places to eat, in areas of London that they're not going to be so familiar with.
You are missing quite a few vegetarian only restaurants. There are three I thought of immediately: The Gate in Hammersmith. or that place on Drummond St near Euston station (Diwani?) Rasa in Stoke Newington. All are well known enough to have had a write up in Time Out at some point.
I find a good way of discovering more of a particular type of restaurant is to look it up on FourSquare and then take a look at the lists it appears on.
EDIT: London also has a vibrant vegetarian culture with many veggie groups. For instance, there's a very nice meetup group with almost 2000 people that convene regularly: http://www.meetup.com/vegetarian-419/
This is probably the first time I've actually Godwinned a discussion, but still: Hitler is not primarily "known" for having been a vegetarian. He did some other more notable things, too.
My default option when there is nothing veggie specific is to eat some place Indian. Plenty of Indian restaurants do understand that vegetarianism is the way even if they do have dead animal dishes on the menu for those encultured from an early age to eat 'meat'. It would be helpful if the best Indian restaurants were on the list too.
One thing that does surprise me about the few vegetarian restaurants that are in London is the clientele. Places like Mildreds are packed night after night, and the punters seem that bit more vibrant, healthy, better looking, articulate and youthful than you would normally expect to find when eating out.
More generally, I think that something has to change regarding vegetarianism in London, much like how things have changed regarding cycling in London. As a society we cannot go on eating variants of endangered species on toast for every meal, it is just not on or necessary. Meat eaters need to lighten up a bit and put some variety into their diet.
Why can't the variety of vegetarian cuisine in London be a tourist attraction? Why can't house prices be that bit higher just because they are in an area where there is an excellent choice of vegetarian restaurants? (In the same way that being on a bicycle route adds to the value of a property.) Why can't we have some version of the 'Bake Off' on TV that is about vegetarian food, to celebrate it rather than be all preachy about how evil the meat industry is? Aside from Hitler, why is it that nobody knows of anyone famous for being vegetarian? This is particularly weird when so many celebrities, athletes, respected thinkers and others that people aspire to and respect are actually vegetarian. Where is the 'Boris' or 'Jamie Oliver' of the vegetarian cause?
Going back to the cycling situation we have had a culture shift in cycling and attitudes towards it that has not pissed off motorists. Even if they don't cycle they don't get uppity about those that do. We need something along the same lines for vegetarianism in London.
Anyway, I hope you too have ideas on how attitudes towards vegetarianism could change in London, it would be great if you could say so on your site.