So is vegetarianism on the way out? According to Alex Bourke, author of Vegan London, ‘Vegan has indeed effectively taken over from vegetarian.’ Excluding Indian cuisine (which has a long tradition of being vegetarian but not vegan), almost 90 per cent of all new vegetarian restaurant, café and market-stall openings are now in fact vegan, he says. Vegetarian restaurant chain Mildreds has gone vegan, and it’s not alone.
Increasingly, the view from meat eaters and vegans alike seems to be that regular vegetarians should be happy to settle for vegan. There’s even a new collective term: veg*n. Pronounced, presumably, much like ‘vegan’: yet another example of vegetarians being squeezed out.
A recent survey by Oatly, the vegan milk producer, found that a third of us are fed up with dietary labels and one in 10 feel judged for labelling their diet in a particular way. Oatly’s latest puppet-based ads portray a bottle of cow’s milk as a thug being gently patronised by a pair of oat-milk cartons. Nothing judgmental or divisive about that!
Being stuck with the vegan option can feel especially galling for vegetarians, when there are twice as many as vegans. It could be that restaurants are overplaying the vegan card in an attempt to look cool. Jack Croft, head chef at Mayfair’s Fallow, a sustainably focused restaurant with a 50 per cent vegetarian menu, says, ‘We expected to have lots, but in fact only about five per cent of our guests are vegans, and we adapt the vegetarian dishes for them.’
Neil Campbell, head chef at Ottolenghi restaurant Rovi, takes the same route, with several adaptable vegetarian and vegan dishes alongside the meat. But, he points out, ‘Cooking vegetables takes more time and skill to deliver a flavour.’ For chefs without the time or staff to work on several dishes, a one-size-fits-all approach will be tempting.
So, vegetarians, hold your middle ground. As Croft says, ‘I don’t see why the vegetarians shouldn’t be allowed cheese just because the vegans can’t.’ And it won’t be congealed on a baked potato.
