Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: Lyle’s, London UK

Most Americans and other non-Brits, when they think of England, think of fancy tea parties, the royal family, and wypipo in big ass hats. Especially when they think of London, ho boy; in their imagination it’s some exalted, clean (lol) city with proper and polite people in tailored clothes, fabulous accents, and yes more big ass hats. Since I am an American living in London, I can tell you that all of that is such utter horseshit that I’m laughing at my own words like Jimmy Fallon when he was on SNL. London, although I love it, is like most big cities that usually smell of piss or sewage (the plumbing is likely the original from the 19th century and is in rull need of a refurb) and instead of fancy people in fancy hats, the folks you’ll run into most often are lads (white boys from 18-35 who act like they are 17 and under) who are a few sips away from being black-out drunk, and they’re vomiting on the sidewalks even during daylight (which is a real feat considering we don’t have much of that this time of year (daylight, I mean; we have plenty of drunk ass lads)). And I never see people out in fancy hats in the city. However, one part of the stereotype rang true for me recently: I went to a fancy ass afternoon tea at a fancy ass hotel. And we liked it, and we loved it. In that beautiful dining room, surrounded by dressed up people generally behaving themselves, it felt like the London of ill-informed Americans’ dreams. 

This delightful occasion arose due to a friend’s visit. I asked what she wanted to do in London and she said “go to a fancy tea!” and I said “yay!” and she said “let’s go to the Ritz like the real classic high tea!” and I said “I didn’t know they could do it vegan!” (we’re both vegan) and she said “I saw reports!” and I said “I’ll email them just to be sure!” and she said “I will too!” and the Ritz told us “we can do vegan!” and I said “Why wouldn’t you put that information on your website so vegans know that you are an option and also why wouldn’t you be publicizing the fork out of your ability to accommodate vegans when London’s dining scene is like completely controlled by and catered to vegans right now (and rightfully so)?” Okay I didn’t say that but I’m going to because they should be allll about the vegan clientele; we run this city. WHO RUN THIS CITY? Vegans. Anyway, some of you more in-the-know tea fans might have caught a mistake in my very accurate portrayal of my convo with my friend: “High tea” is not what we were after. What many people think of as ‘high tea’ is really ‘afternoon tea’, with the little finger sandwiches with no crusts (‘crusts are for the poor!’ – English people) and scones and decadent desserts. That’s afternoon tea. High tea means like, regular dinner food. It comes from when working classes, who unlike the upper class jabronies couldn’t take hours out of their afternoons to share a prissy tea service with little cakes and shit with their behatted neighbors to talk about how hard it is to find good help, would instead drink their tea together after work, and that’s when they’d need their big evening meal. That’s why so many non-Londoners call dinner “tea”, because that’s when they eat regular dinner food. (They also don’t call dinner ‘dinner’ it’s usually really tea or supper (gag) or sometimes they call lunch dinner and I’m going to just drop it before my head splodes.)

So, anyway, here we are, it’s afternoon tea and The Ritz, the famous classic hotel on Piccadilly, which according to wikipedia is “one of the world’s most prestigious and best-known hotels”, does it up for us vegan-style. I’ll be honest; I had low expectations. Even though they said they could do a proper tea with vegan goodies, I’ve been disappointed by super fancy expensive places before. In fact, they’re the places that most frequently disappoint with their ‘vegan accommodation’. So I was excited for this afternoon tea, but I was expecting to drag them for offering sub-par vegan fare. Well GUESS WHO’S DOING THE DRAGGING NOW. I mean, no one, that doesn’t make any sense I guess because it was AWESOME. All the food was delicious, we had scones, we had incredible cakes and what nots. Guys, if you wanna visit, I would go back with you. It was FANTASTIC. (Just so you know, the aforementioned visiting friend treated me to the experience AND brought Beyond Sausages over, I mean not that you have to meet such a high bar if you visit, no not at all, I’m just sharing so you know it’s an option for you.)

Oh also, the bathroom in the hotel was the nicest. They even had glass water bottles and glasses out in the little sitting area. I didn’t take pictures in the bathroom because I’m not a total weirdo but here are some more interior shots before we get to the food. 

When we arrived, they took our name and led us to our table, but they apparently misheard the name because our main waiter thought we were a Birthday Table at first and not the Vegan Table. Luckily I told him before too long ‘you know we are both the vegans right we confirmed like several times right you are ready for us?’ so he was like ‘ohhh okay your name is X not what I thought I heard’ and I was  like BRING ME TINY SANDWICHES and, reader, he did. It took longer to get water (fancy places and their hatred of bringing me tap water!) but hey sandwiches! 

Each of the five types of vegan sandwich options were superb, which is something I never thought I’d say. Like  Joey, I love sandwiches, but not like regular soft-bread sandwiches, what even are those? If we’re talking sandwiches, I’m talking loaded banh mis (banhs mi?), meatball subs, hoagies with all kinds of shit falling out of it, like legit sangwiches, with a g. Not simple sliced bread from a plastic bag at the supermarket with invisible fillings; that’s some minor league bullshit. But these little baby finger sandwiches were delicious, even without shit falling out of them like I like.

The five vegan options were:

1. olive tapenade and artichoke. I mean, amazing pair. I did not expect such an awesome option, I really just expected cucumber sandwiches. So this was such a great surprise and it was made perfectly.
2. tomato. I don’t really love raw tomatoes and yet this was wonderful, probably because it was salted the best amount and the tomatoes were really good. It was such a pleasant lil sang.
3. the classic cucumber and margarine. Man, I didn’t know adding margarine could elevate the simplest thing to being amazing, like what on earth this had no business being so good it was cucumber and MARGARINE and yet it was perfection??
4. red pepper and hummus. As you probably know I really don’t like red pepper, but hummus is my #1 food on earth, so this pairing was tearing me apart Lisa! But putting aside my personal preferences, it is a really smart pairing, and the peppers were cooked (so, soft and not crunchy/raw) and it was pretty great. (I only had one though.)
5. avocado. Probably my favorite, the sandwich version of avocado toast (lolz) with the best ingredient ever (avocado) plus the second best (salt). SO GOOD.

We were unsure whether the ticket price included endless rounds of anything, but they brought us an extra layer of sandwiches even before we could ask! And then we were too full to bother asking for more/being wasteful gluttons so we called it. But I am pretty sure you can ask for more of anything you want. 

Next up to bat, the scones! We were so dang excited that they had vegan scones to begin with, so we weren’t too sad that they didn’t have vegan clotted cream to go with them. Honestly, I don’t really know what clotted cream is so I’m not too distraught over not having a vegan version yet. Eating them with margarine and strawberry jam seemed great anyway. The scones were a little tough but still good. Yay scones! 

We had two scones each and we were hurting. It didn’t seem like a lot of food but I guess when you are drinking all that tea you get full! Oh yeah we ordered tea, but that’s the least important aspect of A Tea. (I had a floral one? and friend had a Chinese one? who cares about the tea?)

Okay, next came the desserts. Looking around the room, everyone else had their top tier full of macarons (the fancy French meringue-y little circle sandwich looking jawns (is that the best definition anyone has ever given), not macaroons, which are the coconut balls popular for Passover). Now, some of you might be sad at not getting macarons, but honestly, despite how gorgeous they are, they leave me cold. They require sooo much effort to make (anyone experimenting over on the Aquafaba Experiments facebook group can tell you that) and they taste like sort of sweet cardboard. And the consistency hurts my teeth and my brain, yeesh. So I was pretty fine with not getting macarons like the rest of the room. But more importantly — I think the vegan dessert options were better than the regular! So everyone else had macarons and like a boring looking tart or whatever. We had shiny little chocolate fudge concoctions that were literally among the best desserts ever. The regular menu doesn’t include chocolate anything! Vegan version for the win.

The shiny chocolate half moon was the richest, densest fudge, and a superthick layer of it to boot. That would have been enough to send me over the moon, but inside the chocolate part was a sort of banana pudding. It was AMAZ. Seriously I don’t understand why this isn’t just on their regular menu. Nothing in that room was better than it! 

Well, except maybe the banana walnut cake. 

When we started onto the desserts, another waiter asked us how everything was and we were like damn, this chocolate masterpiece is a masterpiece. And HE said, ‘oh it’s fine but the banana walnut is my favorite’ and we were like ‘whoooo on earth likes a banana bread jawn more than anything chocolate, especially THIS chocolate?’ But honestly, it was probably the best banana bread/cake I’ve ever had. That guy was right. It was absolutely amazing. Okay get ready becaues I’m going to use the word everyone hates, but I have never had a cake that was as moist as this banana bread. And – confession – I didn’t eat it at the table because I got too full. I took it home and had it the next day. And it was still the moistest (sorry) and super delicious, man alive. 

Then a waiter started going around the room with the dessert cart, which is full of even more options that the regular menu people could choose from. We said to each other ‘oh well, I guess that’s kind of disappointing that we can’t do the super-extra-gluttonous part of picking even more dessert from the extravagant cart, but we’re kind of full anyway’, but then the guy stopped and gave us each a piece of cake! He said this was the extra vegan addition, a pound cake sort of thing with raspberry. We so excited! 

It was a little bit dry, but still good, and hey we’re not looking an extra gift cake in the mouth. 

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. Even though there are several all-vegan teas being publicized around London, I would totally go back to the non-vegan Ritz – for a special occasion. And I wish I could order the chocolate and banana desserts for parties! It was so special to be able to enjoy this classic/stereotypical English experience. And now when people say ‘oh you live in London? Do you go to fancy  teas all the time and eat little sandwiches?’ I’m going to tip my enormous hat and say ‘You bet your bloomin’ ass I do!’ And so can you.

      Today’s entry for my “Challenge Accepted” make-it-vegan series comes from a very special source: mia famiglia. My mom requested that I try to recreate the sweet chickpea cookies that my great-grandmother used to make for her, called “St. Joseph’s Pants”. A calzone-type cookie (called a ‘cavazoon’ in Sicily, where this is popular), the Pants are sweet doughy folds containing vanilla and honey-laden chickpea puree. They are traditionally served on St. Joseph’s Day (celebrating the spouse of Mary), which this year is March 19. The Eye-tals in my family reminisce fondly about these cookies and I just had to figure out more about them.      

      Now, you may recall that bean-filled desserts have to be amazing to pass muster in my book. Those shite “you won’t believe it’s made with black beans!” brownie recipes are literally the Devil’s work. (So much so that this Devil is Capitalized.) But these are different. These cookies aren’t trying to hide their chickpeas; they are proud of them and want to show them off. In Sicily, chickpeas (‘ceci’) play a huge role in traditional celebrations, as they epitomize so perfectly the ability to take something basic and inexpensive and make magical creations with it. Chickpeas play an especially big role in the celebration of St. Joseph’s Day, in salads with fennel, in pastas with cauliflower and fava beans, and of course in these calzone-like cookies. These cookies demonstrate that when you quit trying to hide the beans in your dessert, and instead show some g-d respect, you can achieve wonderful results.

Also, if you missed Purim a few days ago, this is your lucky new holiday, because these Cavazoons are kind of like hamantaschen. Hooray for Jews & Italians, the two groups who do food best. I highly suggest making these because a) it’s one of my new favorite desserts but more so b) I feel bad for Joseph and want people to celebrate his holiday. What a crappy hand he got. I really don’t understand how all that shit went down and no one listened to him exclaiming “Um y’all are playing, right?”

SAINT JOSEPH’S PANTS
Sweet chickpea-filled mini calzone cookies are delicious baked or fried. We’ll include directions for both. I suggest doing half and half because sometimes you feel like a nut, but sometimes you don’t.

    I hope you make and enjoy these calzones, or cavazoons!! Is this not the best bean-based dessert ever? It is. And how good is March for filled-cookie holiday celebrations? Is there another filled-cookie holiday I am missing? Please let me know so I may soon remedy that.
Also, you know we are not going to talk about calzone-like things without mentioning the most adorable king of loving calzones, Mr. Ben Wyatt.

    And after all this talk about my cavazoons, and all the work that went into them, YOU KNOW we have to watch this one as well.