Chef launches vegan venture to prove plants taste just as good

Diners at tonight's feast restaurant Flat Three will be treated to Japanese, Korean and Nordic-inspired dishes made from ingredients grown and foraged in England
Mission: chef Pavel Kanja extracts maximum flavour from vegetables
Alex Lentati

A seven-course vegan culinary “journey” aimed at ending the perception that plants and vegetables can never match meat and fish for taste and variety is one of the closing events of London Food Month.

Diners at tonight's feast at the Holland Park restaurant Flat Three will be treated to Japanese, Korean and Nordic-inspired dishes made from ingredients grown and foraged in England.

Head chef Pavel Kanja, who became vegan 18 months ago to help him lose weight, said his aim was “not to push my agenda but to offer people a genuine option that not many places offer — a purely vegan offering — which is surprising given the size of London.

“I like to highlight what we can do with our vegetables and plants and berries. Many restaurants just say, let’s take the protein away from our dishes — and that’s the vegan menu. It’s really not fair.” He said many vegetarian restaurants just offered replicas of meat-based food: “I am not looking for a burger made from synthesized beetroot held together with some chemical.”

He added: “We extract every flavour we can using fermentation, smoking and salting to give vegetables taste components that you don’t expect. For example we can make a jus totally from vegetables.

“Most people use beef or chicken but we got exactly the same flavour without them. You don’t get that much flavour from a beef bone anyway, so in effect we took out the pointless part of the stock and got the same flavours.”

Suppliers are mainly from the South-East, including the Japanese vegetable farm Nama Yasai near Lewes.

Mr Kanja, whose weight has fallen from 100kg to 71kg since turning vegan, claimed part of the formula was treating vegetables with more care.

Best vegetarian restaurants in London - in pictures

1/7

He said: “Just as anyone will nurture a piece of beef, we will do the same with vegetables.”

The tasting menu, which costs £60 without drinks, starts with a wild broccoli parcel and French onion dashi followed by baby beets, cucumber, lovage and sour garlic.

It winds up with puddings of bergamot, olive oil and strawberry, and tofu, peppermint, raspberry and strawberry. There is also an option of pairing with vegan wines that have not been treated with any fish or egg-based products, for an extra £49, or £33 for non-alcoholic pairings.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in