An indispensible resource for finding restaurants these days, beyond the obvious, is the list of restaurants on the Off Menu podcast website. Obviously some vetting must be done of the guests and their other choices (I can’t remember who named Purezza as one of theirs, but anything other recommendations of theirs simply cannot be trusted).
Through this we find Flax and Kale, the recommendation of someone from a metal band or some such (Architects, I think?), a restaurant which is about 80% plant based and the rest oily fish, which nearly perfect for Alasdair, nearly perfect for me, so that on average is perfect. (we don’t talk about the raw food contingent)
We sit out on the roof terrace that contains their garden from which a lot of their ingredients are sourced. I imagine a decent number of the fruit and veg there have ended up in my smoothie, a quite pleasing and almost chocolate-y number whose ingredients begin in the expected (your orange, your mango) and end in activated charcoal which I’m sure is a thing, but on some molecular level I’m unable to internalise that fact.
It’s not deliberate that I order one of the few non-plant-based menu items, but in my defence, it both sounded and was delicious. Mini salmon burgers, three of them, in bright pink buns thanks to the dough infused with beetroot juice; served with long strips of sweet potato, beautifully fried to the point where I forgot my objection to the notion that sweet potato fries are considered an upgrade on regular fries. Almost a convert.
For dessert, I opt - inevitably, come on - for what’s labelled as a “two textures choco cake”, said textures being ostensibly brownie and mousse. Neither is quite captured as maybe intended, the brownie element being a tad dry and crumbly (as is often the case with vegan brownies as I have learnt to my own detriment) and the mousse not quite as light or airy as you might hope. None of this is a dealbreaker, though, and the mango sorbet it’s served with - despite doing more heavy lifting that may have been expected - hits the spot perfectly.