I can’t say that vegetarian restaurants are generally particularly high on my list to visit having had a mixed but overall good experience at Mildred’s and a shocking one at The Wild Food Cafe, but with The Gate’s recent prolonged moment in the spotlight, I thought it was worth giving a try.
Alice & I visited the Islington branch situated in a lovely, high-ceilinged and airy dining room, with the decor similar to that of any nice modern gastro-pub, which made a nice change to the usual hippie outposts you find dedicated to vegetarian food. The original Hammersmith restaurant was founded by two brothers 25 years ago, with the Islington branch a new addition to The Gate family. The cooking is intended to reflect the diverse cultural background in which the Daniel brothers grew up, or “Indo-Iraqi Jewish”, with the food blending Indian and Arabic cuisines with traditional Jewish food, with an added touch of French and Italian influence, resulting in menu options such as hazelnut and honey crusted goat cheese, grilled halloumi in Indian spices, and butternut rotolo.
Diago, the Manager, and Eve, our waitress for the evening, made our meal a thoroughly enjoyable experience in spite of the fact that our booking had somehow been lost and there were no tables available when we arrived. Nothing a glass of ‘Prosecco Brut, Stelle d’Italia, Veneto’ (£6.00) enjoyed at the bar whilst we waited couldn’t help to assuage however.
Alice & I decided to share starters of miso glazed aubergine, one of my all-time favourite dishes (which is executed entirely faultlessly at my darling Roka restaurant), served as a half aubergine roasted and glazed with miso sauce, topped with toasted cashew nuts, micro coriander and ponzu sauce (£8.00), and the watermelon and feta salad made up of both red and yellow watermelons, fresh feta, baby gem lettuce, toasted pumpkin seeds and honey dressing (£7.00).
The aubergine was good, the meat a little overcooked and watery but the miso glaze on point giving a rich, umami flavour. It was also straight-outta-the-oven-piping-hot, which is not always the case when ordering vegetable dishes such as this and was certainly welcomed by us both. The watermelon and feta salad had all the right components but didn’t quite deliver due to the overwhelming presence of lettuce which overshadowed the classic combination of sweet watermelon and creamy feta. The pumpkin seeds were a nice, crunchy addition and, overall, it was a very refreshing dish.
With glasses of ‘Chenin Blanc, Saumur Blanc, Cabriole, Cave De Saumur, Loire, France 2013’ (£6.25) in hand, we were ready to delve into our mains. Alice had the green dragon salad of glazed smoked tofu, avocado, sweet potato, red cabbage, pak choi, daikon, heritage carrot and peppers with a teriyaki and sesame dressing (£12.00). It was a very fresh and decent tasting pile of vegetables, and though it did what it said on the tin and was presented nicely, it lacked any real cooking skill. My choice of sweetcorn and cilantro fritters served with a black bean, roast pepper and grilled corn on the cob salsa, topped with chargrilled Mediterranean vegetables and chunky guacamole (£13.00), on the other hand, was somewhat more accomplished. The fritter could have been a little crispier-edged but the flavours were excellent and the guacamole provided deliciously smooth contrasting texture, which quite frankly I would have liked a lot more of!
We shared some sides too (because obviously vegetarian means low calorie…), opting for the classic flavour of the moment, roasted spiced sweet potato wedges with garlic & chive sour cream, which were absolutely spot on, as well as the cauliflower with smoked paprika tahini, pine nuts and pomegranate, which wasn’t quite as impressive due to the cauliflower being overcooked and a little school-dinner-like in consistency, though much improved by the smoky, creamy sauce and crunchy, fresh pomegranates.
With Alice only having gone over to the dark side and turned veggie since January (and it not being a topic of conversation we usually get on to when out on the town in our glad rags) it was interesting to hear how her relatively newfound commitment to plant life was going, and I was over the moon (for her, ain’t nobody denying me a steak) to hear that she’s really enjoying it.
Apologies in advance as I’m about to go on a bit of a tangent… so on my way home I started to think (hypothetically, of course) about whether or not I could be a veggie, and though vegetarianism isn’t something that I could or would personally want to commit to, it’s something which I can fundamentally respect and I do think has positive aspects, such as focusing one on eating more greens. That said, veganism still boggles my mind, as despite some of the food being genuinely delicious and quite creative, it’s so incredibly restrictive and, in my mind, very anti-social, and I’m not sure for what bettering purpose (other than belong to the current social trend and Insta-community of sharing “Goddess Bowls” for lunch) than a “normal” vegetarian’s mission. Completely eliminating any and all animal products from one’s life seems to me only to fulfil a self-perpetuating (false due to being unnecessary) feeling of superiority and make food companies dreams come true whilst they make a big buck fast off our sudden demand for “cacao, cashew cream, tahini, bee pollen, buckwheat, nutritional yeast, rosewater-infused, gold leaf, baobab, hemp and chia seed energy balls”. Don’t get me wrong, I love kale chips more than most and there is nothing wrong with a good raw brownie, but I don’t believe this way of eating to be the only way of eating or in any way better than others (and, in fact, it really isn’t, with the nutrient deficiencies that one can develop from a vegan diet as long as my arm), and I certainly wouldn’t dish out hundreds of extra pounds per month to finance it. Maybe I’m being naive but I just don’t quite get it? Why does eating free-range (or any, for that matter) eggs make you a bad person? In my pursuit of wisdom I found this article both hilarious and infuriating. Eggs are a nutritional POWERHOUSE recommended for regular consumption by dieticians and nutritionists the world over. Anyway, I’ve completely lost the plot here [sorry to those only interested in looking at pictures of The Gate’s food, promise I’m just about to get back to that] but I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this and if someone could enlighten me on the need to be vegan (in terms of diet only) over vegetarian, I would be genuinely grateful.
Sorry, back to the good stuff and on to dessert. Alice and I shared the dessert trio of honeycomb cheesecake served with butterscotch sauce, sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel ice-cream, and strawberry eton mess with strawberry coulis (£15.00). It was all really rather good. The sticky toffee pudding could have been more moist (and I would definitely call that tiny pooling of butterscotch sauce stingy), but it was rich and sickeningly sweet as it should be, and thus well paired with the balanced salted caramel ice-cream. The honeycomb cheesecake wasn’t too sweet, which was a good thing in light of the sticky toffee, though I would have preferred the biscuit base to have a little more crunch than crumble texture. The third and final member of the trio, the eton mess, was a light and summery addition and complemented its heavier companions nicely.
There were a lot of things that I really liked about The Gate. The staff were lovely and attentive, the surroundings nice with the dining room filled with happy diners giving a great, buzzy atmosphere, and value for money on point. But, for me, the food was just good, and that’s not because meat was missing, but because there was simply no wow factor or impressive flavour profiles present. It was simple cooking done reasonably well, and well-priced for what it was.
7/10
*I dined as a guest of The Gate, but all opinions are my own.
I’ve always had good experiences eating with vegetarian friends, but I’m with you on the vegan thing. Life is too short to try and live it without cheese. Just NO. Also, that cheesecake looks AMAZING
Haha I don’t even particulalry like cheese but what about chocolate and roasts and CHRISTMAS DINNER!? haha xxx
I also don’t think I could do it even though I love vegetarian food. The dishes are gorgeous rainbow colours, if a little underwhelming in flavour.
Agreed!! Nice once in a while but I couldn’t do it full time xxx
I’d love to try more veggie food when it looks as good as this. The Gate has been on my ‘to visit’ list for so long – I really should go soon! x
NINEGRANDSTUDENT: A Lifestyle Blog
You should definitely go in that case Chloe, I’d recommend Nama Foods and Ethos too! xxx
Haha I wish vegetarian food meant low calorie – but yes, I always use that as an excuse to order more food!!!
In terms of veganism – I’m currently trying to give it a go myself and have lots of vegan friends so maybe can offer some insight. I don’t subscribe to the whole superfood, cacao, goji berries etc. etc. way of veganism and prefer instead to just eat lots of vegetables and pulses – basically everything you can get in a normal supermarket. I’m studying food marketing and susceptibility to food advertising (mainly within a junk food and childhood obesity framework) as part of my PhD so am quite sceptical about that fad diet aspect of it too!
In terms of dietary benefits, I find that when I manage to stick to it (I am, otherwise, vegetarian), I eat a much healthier diet as I obviously don’t eat cheese, biscuits, cake etc. and only eat dark chocolate. For me personally, I don’t actually think there are any dietary benefits of veganism and I am going to need to think carefully about my diet so that I replace the nutrients I would otherwise get from eggs and dairy. But friends of mine have said that veganism has cleared up conditions like eczema so they prefer to stick to it for those reasons.
For me, it’s more about the egg and dairy industry – I’ve been reading around for a few years and sadly, it seems that when you buy eggs and dairy from big industry, you’re still paying into a system of animal cruelty. In the dairy industry, male calves are slaughtered because they are not needed. Same with male chicks in the egg industry. Our idea of free-range and what free-range actually means in industrial terms are sadly mismatched too and hens may still be crammed into a small space, albeit outside or simply in a barn. I read a really fascinating article in Red magazine once (yep, I read a magazine aimed at women at least 10 years older than me, the shame) about how if you’re vegetarian, morally you should eat British rose veal as high demand for dairy but low demand for veal means these young calves are just killed instantly and not used in any way. I considered it for a while but then accidentally ate some pork (long story) and was so distraught I realised I can’t do it.
As I turned veggie due to animal cruelty within the industry, I think it would be hypocritical of me to continue eating eggs and dairy when it’s purchased from larger farms (rather than small local producers where it’s more likely to be the kind of free range we imagine). I don’t feel a sense of superiority at all (I don’t see why people do, it’s literally just eating slightly different food after all and we all have our personal causes that we care about) but I do feel that we need to have more transparency about where our food comes from and how it’s produced so that the general public can make informed choices.
Also, in terms of it being anti-social.. I’m not too sure, I feel a bit uncomfortable with labelling it as anti-social. I know what you mean, in that it can prevent people from being able to go to certain restaurants and means they have to eat something different at dinner parties etc… but it’s just a non-normative dietary choice and no different from people with allergies/religious dietary requirements. The aim of veganism will never be simply to be awkward (well, maybe it is for some people but they don’t count haha), it’ll be about health or environment or ethics etc. If somebody has a health reason or a really strong belief, I don’t think we can expect them to compromise on that for the sake of other people having an easier dining experience and actually, it would be better if our dietary environment was more accommodating of various dietary requirements. I actually think it’s quite anti-social of the restaurants to exclude whole groups of people by not providing options for them!
Anyway, this has turned into way more of an essay than I thought it would haha – I would be interested to know what you think on it more 🙂 it’s such an interesting topic! xxx
Lucy @ La Lingua | Life, Travel, Italy
SO! Super sorry for the delayed response… have been a little busy at work. Firstly, thanks for your detailed response, v insightful and interesting!!! Your PhD sounds incredibly interesting, literally right up my street. What did you study at uni and where are you hoping to go with it next? I definitely get vegetarianism and after reading your comments on the egg/dairy industry I had a look around too and also watched (lol) Lucy Watson’s youtube video ‘My Vegan Story’ where she says much the same as you and to be fair isn’t something I’ve thought about before. Completely agree about needing more transparency in the food industry, especially with animal products and am definitely buying into the more organic, grass-fed blablabla than I ever did before. Interested on what you wrote on eggs though, as if it’s purely from an animal cruelty perspective would you still eat eggs if, for example, you owned chickens that freely roamed in your garden? As obviously they lay eggs and it, to me, would be wasteful not to then put these to good use.
I’m glad you don’t feel a sense of superiority (and sorry for the generalisation), it’s just the vegans I have come across are always very preachy about their choices in a way that can be quite irritating when you are a happy carnivore. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met a vegan that doesn’t want to discuss the fact they’re vegan every few sentences. I get it, to some extent, as they want to inform people of the knowledge they have and “help” people make the “right” choices, but it can still be effing annoying. As for it being anti-social, in a way I do kind of stand by this as if you are not vegan it can be quite hard to come up with creative and yummy food to cater for them (not so much for our generation that are very exposed to it, but particularly our parents generation or more traditional restaurants). I get (and agree) that everyone should be entitled to eat how they wish, particularly when the reason behind it is for a very valid cause rather than to be socially awkward. That said, vegans really are a totally different sphere of ingredient options than vegetarians, and although I would never suggest a vegan/vegetarian ate meat to please others, I do think, for example, a vegan could eat a meal cooked with ghee if that were to happen accidentally. I basically think we can have our opinions and beliefs but when they affect other people so greatly there has to be a (small) level of flexibility, say 5% of the time, when people have gone out of their way to do something for you and rather than blanket reject it because it contains a small element of something you would rather not eat, just kind of smile and enjoy? I’m questioning myself as I right this so feel free to disagree but I do kind of think, particularly if someone has actually TRIED to make a meal specifically accomodated to you, and effs it up a bit by putting an egg in the sauce, you should be grateful… What do you think?
I do also worry about the lack of vital nutrients and food groups that vegans miss out on, but I guess if they take adequate supplementation it’s OK… I just still don’t personally think that’s how humans are supposed to live.
Lots of love xxx
Hey 🙂 thanks for the reply! Yes I would definitely eat eggs if they came from my own (or other people’s) free-ranging chickens! There are some vegans who are much more black and white about it but I don’t see any harm in eating the ones they lay when they’re otherwise happily scratching about in the garden!
I think it’s really interesting, I’ve never met a superior vegan and have lots of vegan friends but there’s definitely a general idea out there that vegans/vegetarians are superior and don’t shut up about it.. but then I guess they’re the visible ones because they DO go on about it so much. Maybe they’re in the minority and actually there are hundreds more that we meet in our lives, they just never bring it up and so are “invisible vegans” (sounds weird!). But then our opinions of vegans and veggies would be that they’re mostly whiney preachers because we only notice the ones who do behave like that. I personally get annoyed at any kind of preaching when it comes to food – there should only be education and support. I hate how moral food has become!
I definitely think we should be grateful when people try and accommodate – it really is the thought that counts! I’m pretty flexible so yeah, if someone accidentally put cheese in my meal I wouldn’t throw a hissy fit (although if I accidentally ate meat I would probably cry cos that’s just the kind of person I am haha). But then it depends on the strength of the belief and the motives for doing so. My vegan friends have always actually brought their own food just in case and they’re so apologetic all the time – I just throw my standard chickpea, sweet potato and avocado salad at them and hope for the best! (This is literally what I live on when going through a vegan phase. Literally nothing else. I’m so unimaginative).
My PhD is broadly on eating behaviour and behaviour change interventions, more specifically on the unconscious motivators of food choice and how we can change it using “brain training” games – I’m testing the brain-training on kids 🙂 the idea is to undo the effect that food advertising has on children’s eating behaviour (loads of studies have shown that kids are really susceptible to food adverts and they eat way more after being exposed to them) – we’re trying to see if you can train a resistance to that. xxx
Ah ok, I get you (and that also makes it a little easier I think, in a good way!). Ooo yes, that’s actually a really fair/sound point. Completely agree with food choices suddenly being a question of morality and judgment, good or bad, though I do think some positive health/fitness/wellness bloggers are really helping to tout “balance” etc. Tbh that salad sounds delicious, feel free to shove it at me some time 😉 But yeah I think you may actually well be right in that the more subtle vegans probably feel really awkward and bad for “inconveniencing” others so I will take back my superiority point and say that that only comes across because of the people who preach online who are probably indeed the minority of vegans. Your PhD sounds like the most interesting topic ever, I would literally LOVE to read it when you’re finshed (seriousy)! Where do you want to go with it? And GOOD LUCK xoxo