Veggie Restaurant in Hammersmith London

We went for a meal at The Gate Vegetarian Restaurant on a Friday Night.  The atmosphere is very pleasant although it is quite busy.  Candle lit with low lighting throughout the restaurant.

For starter Paul tried the carciofini  baby artichokes stuffed with dolcelatte & wild mushroom duxelles, fried in a crispy beer batter, served with a puy lentil salsa & lemon & garlic aioli Carciofini.  This was the best part of the meal.  The flavour was smokey and crispy served on a lentil salad with some dressing.  It tasted really good.

The main course Paul went for the Thali a lentil & vegetable bhaji, and aubergine & cauliflower pakora, served with cucumber & onion salad, rice, roti, and a pear & coriander chutney. The flavours were good but a little too dry,  the curry needed to be wetter – with no liquid  the rice had no real place on the plate.  The Indian bread was nice.

For my main course I went for the wild mushroom risotto cake sautéed girolles, pied de mouton, oyster & chestnut mushrooms, served on a truffle risotto cake, finished with a creamy cep sauce.  The rice cake was a little bit hard and the rest tasted OK,  but not something I would bother with again.

For Dessert we shared a  raw vanilla & coconut cheesecake served with raspberry couli.  This tasted quite pleasant,  Paul did enjoy it more than I.

The gate is a lovely vegetarian restaurant,  however as a vegan I find the place very frustrating.  The meals are designed for vegetarians and then substitutes are put in for vegan options.  So the vegan dishes do feel like they lack something,  the dish is incomplete in some way.   Whereas in somewhere like SAF the meals feel special as they are designed for vegans and you can really taste the difference.  The annoying thing is that they have the skills, they just need to stop being lazy with vegan dishes and create them for vegans rather than adjusting a vegetarian dish.

Here is more information on The Gate.