I was recommended this vegetarian restaurant by my supervisor, though I later found out that she had not yet been herself. It has a rather unusual system, in that instead of ordering off a menu, you take a plate and fill it with all the delicious things you want to eat, before having your choices weighed at the till. The amount you pay depends on how much your plate weighs. It’s a bit like a high-end, veggie pick‘n’mix. Now I am the sort of woman that, in my mother’s view, should never be allowed near a buffet (or in my view should ALWAYS be allowed near a buffet!). My eyes go round with the choice and I end up having to try everything! So needless to say it was a bit expensive when I got to the till….luckily I can pass that cost on. But you might want to bare it in mind if you are going there yourselves. Also I had a bit of an embarrassing moment when I realised I had left my purse behind in the office! How mortifying! Luckily the lady at the till was lovely about it and kept my plate on hold whilst I made a quick dash back. But it did mean that sadly some of my hot food was cooling off a bit by the time I got to eating it.
Nonetheless the various salads were very tasty, the manager/maître d’ always on hand to explain the system, and the sheer colour of what was on my plate was beautiful. Also it has to be said that I am usually the one looking for the meat in the meal; often I have found vegetarian food to not be satisfying enough. This filled me up completely! I have to put a special shout out to the pita bread, which was beautifully soft, and the hummus, within which you could taste the crushing of each individual chickpea, it was so obviously homemade. Other particular enjoyments included a cold butternut squash and feta cheese salad and a tangy green salad with crispy sugar-snap peas (to be honest sugar-snap peas are one of the few vegetables that are divine raw anyway so they couldn’t really do much wrong on that front – but their taste was subtly enhanced with oils and vinegars). An interesting yellow beetroot duped my eye into eating it (I have always hated the red variety); the flavour was far milder that its too strong cousin and actually really nice! The quirky Nordic-style décor was another plus from my perspective; I love the fact that they installed clusters of real silver birch so that I could pretend I was foraging in a Swedish forest. Altogether it was a lunch that let you stuff yourself guilt-free in beautiful surroundings….and what could be better than that?
The Lunching Intern ate:
So much that she can’t remember all of it
But the hummus was particularly good
And those little aubergine-mozzarella stacks
And the cubes of halloumi…..mmmmmm
Also I have never actually liked beetroot – but this restaurant made me like beetroot.
Total cost = £20 approx. (but my eyes were too big for my stomach and you could easily knock £5 off that). The official cost is £2.60 per 100g eat-in and slightly less to eat-out.
Ethos Foods, 48 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DX
