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Veganism Hits London, to Puzzlement of Brits

by Zoe Strimpel
Sun, 4 May 2008

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It took a while, but veganism has finally made it onto the culinary radar here, at least enough so that the idea of a purely vegan restaurant isn't instantly dismissed as ridiculous. And so London's first up-market vegan outpost, called Saf (the chef, Chad Sarno, is American), has opened in the trendy Shoreditch area. Although customers should flow in naturally enough from the chic neighborhood — populated by types concerned with the ethics of every morsel they consume — the critical establishment is bound to laugh.

Indeed, Fay Maschler, regarded as the high priestess of British food criticism (the Frank Bruni of London), has just been. Her review was never really going to take wing and fly beyond a firmly entrenched scorn for veganism, a diet Brits tend to associate with pathological American attitudes toward food. Being "vegan diet," Ms. Maschler tells us promptly, is her well-used phrase for being boring. The restaurant's emphasis on "raw" cooking — preparing food below 48 degrees Celsius in order to break as few vital enzymes as possible — also fails to impress, remaining a lifeless factoid buried in another sentence midway through.

"A vegan diet means eating in a harmless sort of way so that the only disservice done is the anguish that a carrot or a beetroot might feel as it is tugged from the earth," Ms. Maschler explains to readers potentially unfamiliar with the practice, Londoners though they may be. "Meat and fish are obviously out, but so are eggs, dairy and even honey because of the dear little bees. Nuts become more than just a snack; they are used for their milk to make a sort of cheese." Would New Yorkers need this explained?

The food at Saf sounds pretty good — sushi and lasagna and other impossible foods rendered with the ingenious use of beetroot, ricotta, nuts, and vegetables. Ms. Maschler, though, has little patience for dishes masquerading as things they are not, and can never be. "Mimsy" is her word for them. She does, however, find succor in a plate called Mushrooms, "which at least have a meaty quality." Alas, Saf isn't going to cut it for London's meat- and cheese-loving standard-setters, and for no fault of its own. "The problem with Saf," Ms. Maschler concludes, "is that it is just a bit vegan diet."

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