Fathers & Daughters Dine – Mildreds Soho
Many of the vegan and vegetarian restaurant chains that sprang up over recent years have disappeared, having been spatchcocked into closure as they have all too often sought to replicate meat dishes in plant-based form.
My daughter is vegetarian and we’ve visited a number of such places with very mixed results. Frequently it has involved a menu comprising over-processed foods that suck the life out of the vegetables and plants.
It was therefore a great pleasure to visit the flagship Mildreds in Soho (as a guest of the restaurant) that celebrates vegetables as they should be and does not shoehorn them into being some weird burger, hotdog, or kebab.
Its ethos is no doubt why it is still going strong, having been a pioneer of vegan cuisine when it opened its doors in Soho in 1988. It was a timely visit for my daughter and I as it coincided with the reopening of this original site after a major refurbishment, which includes the addition of a new dining room on the third floor. Mildreds now serves across three floors of the atmospheric Soho townhouse.
The timing of our visit also enabled us to choose the ‘Taste of Mildreds’ menu that has been curated by renowned vegan chef Sarah Wasserman. At the Soho and Covent Garden sites this is a full-blown £38 per head 11-dish journey that requires a minimum of two people. At the other Mildreds sites there is a short £25 per head version of the menu.
The idea is that it showcases the best of the restaurant’s globally inspired dishes. It is a definite journey around the world. But don’t think this is clocking up the air miles as the menu is predominantly dealing with domestic produce and it’s the spices, herbs and nuts that reflect a global cuisine and these find their way into each of the dishes.
The use of spices and herbs to create the sauces, dips and marinades along with the liberal addition of various nuts/seeds is where Mildreds delivers flavour-packed dishes with great textures. Among the picks on our meal were the smoky Red Pepper Romesco, and the Salsa Macha Hummus where the pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and smoky Mexican chilli oil combined with the hummus to provide a punchy starter. The chipotle ketchup also upped the flavour ante when served with the Aranchini Rossi. Another killer accompaniment came with the Kimchi Gyoza – a sweet gochujang sesame dip.
The two larger main plates included a Beetroot Thel Dala that stood out for not only its vibrant colouring – that would no doubt stop traffic – but also for its enveloping heat that comes from the leaf-infused curried beetroot. My kinda leaf. It was also very much to my daughter’s taste, along with the accompanying pickles – notably the carrots.
Rounding off the meal were a couple of Tiffin Truffles. Any more than one each would have been pushing things as we certainly felt we’d been on an eventful journey (helped by the lovely servers). Just like Mildreds in fact, which is heading towards 40 years in the capital and still producing plenty of hits. The soundtrack was also a catalogue of hits – ostensibly from the eighties – from the likes of Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and New Order.
This is the latest in the ‘Fathers & Daughters Dine’ series. This is the previous piece.
Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider