Hi everyone
Heather Mills vegan restaurant has been open a little over a year, [url]and is closing until Spring 2011[/url] [i.e. it has failed and will not be opening again]. Her goal was to have a vegan restaurant on every high street. I think this is a commendable goal.
I think that Heather's heart is in the right place. I like her promotion of vegan foods as a tasty, affordable and nutritious alternative to an animal-based diet. However, I admit to be very very disappointed when I looked at what the [DLMURL="http://www.vbites.com/category/menus/"]menu[/DLMURL] consists of. It appears to be based almost entirely around dishes containing meat-substitutes:
soya hot dogs
beef-style burger
BLT toastie (obviously made from bacon substitute)
soya chicken-style nuggets
soya fish-style fingers
Huh??? There's not a chickpea burger or lentil patty in sight! There's virtually nothing on her menus which is not a meat-style, fish-style or cheese-style something or other. I find it depressing that her take on veganism is to find something vegetable-based which tastes/looks like meat/fish/cheese. And I wonder what the point of that is?
It's obvious that she'll have done considerable market research before opening the restaurant. It's truly dismal that the feedback she got was that vegan fare was unappealing to the general public unless it somehow resembled beef/bacon/chicken/cheese/fish.
What are your thoughts? Do you think that an exclusively vegan restaurant offering a regular wholefood vegan menu would have fared better? Could a 'vegan restaurant on every high street' ever become a reality?
Ava x
It's embarrassing that I am getting my quotes from [url]Jan Moir of the Daily Mail[/url], but she's picked up on my point exactly:
"For at this vegan restaurant, the menu is meat obsessed, featuring fake chicken, fake burgers, fake sausages, fake pepperoni and fake fishcakes, most of them topped with synthetic fake cheeses.
This is one aspect of veganism that I find particularly hard to understand. If you hate meat, if you despise meat and everything it stands for, why not eat meat alternatives instead of meat substitutes?"
What sort of message is Heather sending the general public about the vegan diet... that vegans are meat-obsessed? It's like a skinhead wearing a wig and insisting that he is a skinhead. He is, technically, but why not just take the wig off and be a skinhead... i.e. why not just forget about meat and be a vegan? Heather, are you listening?!
Ava x
Hi Ava,
You beat me to it as I was going to say about the crit i had read recently about Heather Mill's cafe!
I took my goddaughter for lunch to a wonderful vegetarian cafe at the Walled Garden in Helmsley this week and we both had amazing salads - sprouting beans, seasonal salad ingredients etc plus a delicious salad dressing. They had soup, quiche and lentil rissoles on the menu too which all looked delicious. Plus gorgeous cakes and puds but we were too full for afters!!!!!!! 😀
Those are the sorts of choices I expect when I eat somewhere like that!;)
I treat myself to a vegan take way from 'RainForest' in London sometimes, very colourful, delicious, nutritions and totally recogniseable as real food.
Heather could take a leaf out of their book -pun intended
Gaiaholistix and Tigress
Yes, that's what I would have thought. The salads and soups you describe are what I'd hope to get from a vegan restaurant... and to leave inspired with new ideas and combinations to try at home. Vegans don't eat eggs - so quiche would not be offered at a vegan restaurant.
The only reason I can think that Heather is offering this processed muck is to con the palates of the non-discerning omnivore into thinking they are eating meat... and hence not missing it. But processed muck, whether meat or non-meat, is still processed muck. I don't feel that anyone who likes and appreciates food would choose to eat this. It's such a shame because it's such a wasted opportunity, when she could have introduced the wider public to the really nice options of a vegan diet.
Ava x
The only reason I can think that Heather is offering this processed muck...
is to line her pockets. That's my take on it anyway but then I'm not fond of Heather Mills. (It really got to me when she started whining about the millions in her divorce settlement not being enough to allow her daughter to fly first class.) I don't remember hearing about Heather Mills' veganism while she was married to Paul, while Linda McCartney's vegetarianism (not sure if she was vegan) was well known. I'm not surprised Heather's restaurant has failed - she obviously doesn't have a clue.
She has put us out of misery. Her vegan eatery is shut indefinitely or atleast until Spring.
is to line her pockets.
Of course you are right. But she is a vegan, and she did try (and fail) to open a chain of high street vegan restaurants. No matter what you think of her as a person that's a commendable goal.
I'm not surprised Heather's restaurant has failed - she obviously doesn't have a clue.
Again, you are right. However anyone opening a business does market research. I just don't understand how she could have got it so wrong. She's alienated a big group of potentially loyal customers: health conscious vegans and vegetarians, plus health-conscious omnivores. None of whom would wish to eat processed food.
Ava x
I saw her on TV a while back and basically what she said is she's not interested in feeding vegans! Her menu is full of fake meat because she's trying to show omnis that there are options out there.
Having said that, I've never been but some of my fellow vegan friends have and they said it's not that bad, but it is what it is. It isn't creative fine vegan food, you need to go elsewhere for that and in Brighton, there's no shortage of veggie friendly places.
nice information
thanks for the information