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Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: Ramon Freixa in Madrid, Spain
When we spent a weekend in Madrid this year, Husband surprised me with a reservation for lunch at Ramon Freixa, a restaurant with two (2!) Michelin stars. This was obviously very exciting, although the place is not well-known for its vegan-friendliness. Husband contacted all the best restaurants in Madrid to see who could accommodate vegans the most, and Ramon’s assurances were the most persuasive and promising. And if they didn’t do a good job, at least I could publicly shame them on my blog. Happily, we are doing zero shaming today! (At least on the blog.) Ramon Freixa presented me with a delightful, seemingly endless vegan ‘lunch’ (it lasted well into the evening).
My bag has its own little seat!
The first few dishes were already on our table when we were seated, which I very much enjoyed. According to the menu, we have seaweed crackers, “cold and hot citric”, and “the strawberry that wanted to become tomato”, the latter of which is the name of a book or movie or song I’m going to write; I don’t care what it is I need to use that name. The crackers were self-explanatory, nothing special. But the other two components set the bar extremely high for the rest of the meal, at least creativity-wise. The cold and hot citric was a really citrus sorbet but with hot citrus juice poured on top, so it was frozen yet hot and foaming while you ate it. It was delicious, but more than that, it was awesome. Our poor little strawberry friend was a huge surprise, because it looked like a strawberry, little seed dots and all, but it was indeed a tomato. A perfect raw tomato that had somehow been manipulated to look like a strawberry AND to not taste like the usual (gross) raw tomatoes. So cool!
Tomatoes on a cracker but amazing
The next two small plates are mysteries. They were both good, one incredible and one fine, but I’m just not sure what they were. I think the fantastic one was a lentil cracker with some kind of cheesy root vegetable and crispy things on top. It was such a lovely little bite I could have had 100 of them. It was also served upon a white ceramic tree stump. Hot damn I love the stuff fancy restaurants use. The fine one I think was chia seeds; the menu says ‘veggy roe’ which is pretty accurate for chia pudding actually. It had chopped carrot or winter squash in there and some seaweed.
After such rich food, I was grateful that the next dish was lighter and healthier, although it did taste healthier to if you know what I mean. This was a bean log, made of pureed white beans, rolled in broccoli dust, with shaved raw truffles at the ends. (Raw truffles do not taste like whipped awesome truffles.) This did taste a little like plain beans and raw broccoli, but I am vegan so I really enjoyed it.
Grilled veggies, I just can’t finish you!
RAMON FREIXA, MADRID, SPAIN
Water speed: Total bosses! I think there was a waiter who was solely responsible for watering me.
Service: See above. Pretty great.
Bathrooms: Omg the bathrooms were so funny. The restaurant decor was all golds and whites and silvers, very simple chic, and then the bathroom was like neon yellow and futuristic plastic stuff, so funny. There were incredibly fancy soaps and lotions too; I considered pulling a ‘Broad City’ and filling up a plastic bag with them.
Food: Really wonderful overall. Some dishes were basic but the average was brought up pretty high due to some standouts.
Bonus: Pretty sure we were dining with the richest Japanese businessmen planning coups and stuff. Also people were wearing hilarious dinner jackets. Like hilarious.

Brighton, UK: The Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge More Challenged Than Great
It’s a contest, and the diners vote for the winner. Jojo at vegan.in.brighton invited me to join her this year, and considering how envious I have been in past years, I was all for it. Sadly, my suspicion that I bring bad luck around with me like a personal storm cloud was reinforced, because most of this stuff was hella gross.
Everything I have eaten that was actually made by Moshimo chefs has been wonderful. It’s this whole letting-other-chefs-use-your-kitchen-and-feed-utter-nonsense-to-unsuspecting-patrons thing that gets tricky. At this event, eight chefs from different Brighton restaurants and catering companies came in and shared a vegan dish that incorporated the vegan sushi theme and their individual restaurant’s style. It’s a chance for great local chefs to be really creative and exciting and impressive. Usually, they are. This year, due to my storm cloud (but mostly due to lack of effort, taste buds, and common sense), the dishes ranged from boring to inedible to almost good, the worst kind. Well no, ‘inedible’ is I guess worse than food that with a little more effort could have been solid, but the latter makes me angrier. Let’s see what went down!
First, let’s look at all the wonderful food that Moshimo sent out between contest dishes to keep us happy. Seriously, these dishes were the best part of the night. Moshimo is a conveyor-belt-style sushi place, so it was really fun to pick the best looking plate coming down the belt. And it was really smart to keep diners happy and full with actually decent food.
“My chicken brings all the boys to the yard, so I don’t really have to put in any effort”
The dish from catering company 64 Degrees was at least properly named. It was called Gotcha, which is mean but it’s honest. And yeah, everything about this felt like trickery. It wasn’t bad at all, as a snack, but it was odd as a meal. Who thought of this? I wish I could have been in the room when the following conversation undoubtedly took place:
“We should take those small square Japanese rice crackers that everyone knows well from bulk bins and are generically named “Asian Snack” and soak them in a sweet sauce until they get chewy. BUT NOT SOFT.”
— “Um, Pete, that’s really weird. We’re trying to impress people with how good vegan sushi can be.”
“F%*# vegans! All good sushi has fish in it. So let’s just take something that’s already vegan – rice cracker thingies, they don’t have a name – and serve it like it’s dinner.”
— “But that will be really…weird. It might be a decent snack, but that’s not a good meal. We’re trying to win a contest here by presenting dinner food.”
“If we win, then vegans win.”
— “What?”
“Do you want vegans to win?”
–“I…what?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
And that’s the story behind how we were served bowls of those crunchy rice crackery things soaked in a sweet miso glaze until they became unbelievably chewy and caramelized, and how we all lost teeth and gained future cavities.
Man alive, can you believe this showing? Do I dare attend next year? It can only improve, right? Even though a lot of the dishes were gross, I’m really glad I went this year. I now know so many businesses to avoid! But seriously it was a lot of fun, and it’s always good to get Moshimo sushi! Even if I had to eat a lot of other crap as well.