I was hopping into London for a Bloggers Meetup so, of course, preplanning where I was to eat(food research…a glorious chore). The meetup was in Soho so I Googled the area and abracadabra…Vitao flashed its vegan credentials at me. I had been before but it has altered its style of service to a buffet (to budge over and create some room for it’s sister VANTRA - which is more restaurant style).
How it works is this - you get a choice of 3 plates that you have to juggle for 5mins whilst rapping about vegan food, in order to get served..no, I lied. That would be silly. 3 plates of differing sizes; baby plate = £5.50, mommy plate = £6.50, Big daddy plate = £8.90 for as much as you can eat. The Big Daddy would be like a red rag to a bull and I would have gone mental eating it all so I opted for the middle one (ooh, it’s like Goldilocks..except I’m brunette and it ain’t porridge).
If you are vegan/vegetarian, macrobiotic, gluten-free, celiac or coeliac (seems there are two ways to spell it in US or UK), sugar-free, low-fat or just plan HUNGRY, Vitao promise to be your go-to restaurant in the heart of Soho. So I grabbed a plate and set about discovering if it is true. If you have a food intolerance then please do check with them. The noodles, seitan & soy sauce are not gluten-free.
I pretty much filled up my plate. Unfortunately the waiter could tell me the names for any of the dishes, and I cannot remember all of the 10 or so I filled my plate with, but there were lots of colourful raw salads with tasty dressings, steamed broccoli, curries, stews, veggie rices and potato & cauliflower bakes. ALL of them were bursting with flavour and each dish highly individual. Only one dish didn’t really float my ship and that was the Chinese mushroom stew, purely because the texture of the mushrooms was a bit weird/slimy….IMHO. The tofu and spinach stew and the carrot salads were my current favourites.
Dessert was not on the cards for me this time, as I have been baking at home so much I thought I’d better reign it in for a while. They had a range of vegan desserts and cakes on the counter that looked very comely! I devoured a raw apple pie here last year and it was sensational (though not as good as my homemade raw apple pie - I know, not very British of me to boast but someone has got to blow my trumpet in the vast orchestra of online vegan foodies).
They also serve a huge range of vegan milked based drinks, juices & smoothies, herbal teas and just plain, honest to goodness, water. I noticed, they used to use all organic eco-friendly toiletries in the loos and I was a little disappointed that this was not the case on this visit.
I think Vitao would be equally great for a bunch of friends or just comfy by yourself watching the world go by.
What great photos of the whole experience! Thank you for sharing. We were in London two summers ago and I wish I’d known about Vitao!
What a cool place! The different plate sizes is such a great idea! I wish more buffets did that instead of the one plate/price for all.
everything looks delicious !!!