Food For Thought (London, UK)

We went down to London yesterday to see Hamlet at the National Theatre. Of course I like to get as many London vegan meals in as possible so we booked a table at Zilli Green (review to come) for dinner and planned to go to WholeFoods to stock up on vegan cosmetics and have some lunch. Geoff, however, had a different plan and we ended up in Chinatown before I knew it so he could get some Pandan Mochi. Since we were short on time we decided to have lunch somewhere closer.

Geoff had actually been introduced to Food for Thought earlier that week by a friend of ours (who is also from Brisbane but is living in London for a little bit). He loved it so, with the help of my extremely unreliable GPS and GoogleMaps, we ended up there for a very fast lunch.

The restaurant is located in Covent Garden on Neal St so is easy to get to but it doesn't exactly stand out so you can walk past it without knowing it (which we kind of did). Once you are inside you head down some narrow stairs (take-away only is up the top) and are greeted with a small blackboard explaining the pricing and a very cheery server who explains today's options.

The room is not that big but there are bathrooms and there was plenty of spare seating (although it was Easter Saturday so London was very quiet). The tables have bowls of raw sugar, sea salt and pepper and you get glasses with your meal and there is water on each table that is regularly filled.

For £8 you can get a bowl of a "main" (I had a Mediterranean stew and Geoff had a Japanese stew but there was also a vegetarian lasagne and a vegan sweet potato and rice bake available) with your choice of salads. The salad helpings were very generous and the stews were really delicious so we felt it was very good value for money. There are cheaper options (just salad or main by itself or soup for around £4) and there looked like lots of desserts but I'm not sure if any were vegan.

Geoff was so impressed with the food he bought their recipe book so look forward to some recipes from it. And in general we were quite impressed with the place so will go back regularly and I highly recommend it for a hearty lunch or dinner.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention was their "food philosophy". Every day the menu is different and made fresh and the day's menu is determined by what fresh, seasonal ingredients they can get their hands on. This means that the vegetables were fresh and delicious and their carbon footprint is a little less.

EDIT: We recently returned here but this time for dinner. Unfortunately, most of the food was sold out by then so we didn't get the yummy stew we were expecting. We also noticed a lot of people walked out when they realised there was no butternut squash soup. The chef obviously only makes a certain amount each day so if you want access to the full range I would recommend lunch or an early dinner.