Tossing the salad | Review: Holy Carrot Bistro, London

I haven’t dined at the original Holy Carrot and never will. It’s not that it’s a wholly vegan restaurant (but that’s part of it), I just dread a W11 postcode. In terms of psychogeography it’s less anxiety-inducing for me to hop on the Eurostar to Paris for lunch. Not that I didn’t live it up in the late 80s and early 90s at Subterania on a Saturday and after hours at The Globe and love it. But there’s too much London, and my own personal version of it doesn’t go west of Marble Arch. I was thrilled to visit Holy Carrot’s recently opened Spitalfields sibling because anything a short stroll from Brick Lane feels local to me. Also – it’s vegetarian rather than rigidly vegan.

I was veggie for a short period when I was taking a lot of MDMA

I was veggie for a short period when I was taking a lot of MDMA at that aforementioned Ladbroke Grove nightspot (and elsewhere/anywhere for a period). There was something about the repeatedly chemical induced bliss that made me really feel that meat was murder, so I got seriously into portobello mushrooms stuffed with goat’s cheese. Then I went to see Princess Diana’s colonic cleanser, got flushed out, and was told I was allergic to wheat. If you’ve been for a colonic, you’ve been told the same thing. It’s nonsense. But the fact I’d been to have such a thing done proves I was gullible enough to put into action whatever I was told after the session. Avoiding wheat meant almost everything that made up my veggie diet was off limits, so back to sausages I went.

The new Holy Carrot Bistro is a gem of a place. One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to see the Faye Toogood interior. I’m a Toogood obsessive and recently rinsed out my bank account while panic buying everything I could at her fashion designer sister Erica’s final sample sale. There’ll be no more Toogood clothes – a tragedy that’s indicative of how hopeless the fashion industry is right now – but the interiors carry on. There are some lovely touches here without the place becoming a Toogood showroom – the ragged silver candlesticks, modernist tiling, giant chairs downstairs, and mushroom murals are lovely. The place looks like St John on edibles. And there are tablecloths! I love it. Well, not all of it –  the toilet doors have handles that suggest each cubicle is locked (god bless the poor member of kitchen staff who constantly runs out to demonstrate that they aren’t – you just need to give them a firm turn). Almost as annoying as those signs outside a W.C. that suggest gender in a bewildering fashion – is the mouse with a bonnet and a walking stick the gents or what?

And so, to the dining… It’s not as fancy as the likes of Dirt Candy in New York (j’adore, but so pricey and a bugger to get a table!). There are ‘Holy D’Oeuvres’ that include sourdough (dark and lovely) and seasonal crudites with whipped tahini which you definitely want on the table while you work out what else you’re having. The Smoke cocktail is a fairly trad Old Fashioned with a touch of banana and the Heat cocktail wasn’t available when I was there because of missing ingredients. Instead of the offer of a spicy margarita (had enough of those elsewhere) I went for Salt, which involves smoked watermelon, Hennessy, Tio Pepe and lemon. It tastes like a bag of wine gums in a glass. Inject it into my veins.

I shared a plate of ‘Sexy’ tofu with my husband (who refused to order it by its full name) and again, would recommend – it comes with smoked carrot and mustard greens and has a lovely light crust. A giant vol-au-vent with oyster mushrooms and peppercorn sauce was fine, but heavy on the pastry. A choc crémeux with malted caramel sand and a lemon posset with soft meringue were both solid (the latter is described as “no waste” as it uses bits of lemon left over from cocktail construction).

The star of the show at Holy Carrot Bistro is the tempeh and smoked tofu schnitzel which comes with artfully curled celeriac remoulade on a bed of Café de Paris butter, rich with citrus and spices and capers. Usually I hate decoy veggie dishes (you know the kind of thing: medium-rare burgers faked through torturing mushrooms and beets) but this schnitzel has a singular, wonderful quality. I love a risotto primavera as much as anyone, but this is something different: it’s veggie food with soul. The sweetly curried butter reminded me of those snacks you get in Amsterdam when you’re drunk. It’s like the bone marrow and toast or the Welsh rarebit at St John. It’s what the place will become known for. It’s why you’ll come back time and time again and why Holy Carrot Bistro is a welcome addition to the Shoreditch/Spitalfields dining scene. Finally here’s somewhere I’ll look forward to visiting with veggie mates, where they can eat anything rather than go for the single, token, non-dead-animal dish on the menu – and I won’t feel like I’m putting myself through an ordeal. C

Holy Carrot Bistro, 61, 63 Brushfield St, London E1 6AA
holycarrot.co.uk