Choosing to adopt a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle is more popular than ever as people recognise the positive impact on sustainability and animal welfare without the need to sacrifice taste or style. However, until recently, it was also a choice fraught with restriction when it came to “dining out.”
Spicers Retreats are known for exceptional experiences, especially when it comes to food. We pride ourselves on making every plate a masterpiece and it is this commitment that has driven our chefs to create and deliver dedicated, multi-course, plant-based menus that are sustainable and sensational.
Spicers Managing Director, David Assef was the General Manager at Spicers Clovelly Estate when the decision was made some 7-8 years ago to have dedicated vegetarian menus. We saw the need to ensure everyone had a great dining experience and we’ve been doing it ever since.
Ash Martin, Executive Head Chef at Homage Restaurant explains how his team of Chefs are pushing the boundaries to create menus that are more than “meals without the meat”
‘Back when we started at Homage five years ago we had vegetarian dishes, but we wouldn’t need to prep for them, just cook them as they were ordered. But now we fully prep the vegetarian options because they’re becoming so much more popular.’
‘The great thing about Homage is that our produce is such high quality and so fresh that it lends itself to really good vegetarian menus. It’s not just a matter of taking the meat out of a dish and serving it. They’re complete menus based on what’s in season in the garden or from our suppliers and they stand up on their own as great dishes.’
‘We’re actually really lucky with the style of food we’re cooking – the wood-fired oven, cooking over the coals, the smokehouse – the methods we’re using cater to dietaries naturally anyway, so we’re not cooking with a lot of gluten or dairy, and anything outside of that we prep from scratch for people with those allergies.’
Choosing to be vegetarian or vegan is a personal choice and that choice should not mean you are limited to having to consume disappointing and uninteresting fare. At Spicers we ensure that your lifestyle choice is not a limitation.
“Eating out can often be disappointing as the token vegetarian pasta is often the best you get. Eating at any Spicers restaurant is such a treat as you get to experience the most incredible vegetarian meals and there is so much choice.” Said a happy vegetarian diner.
All diners – regardless of preference – are provided with interesting and versatile meals. And with options like Bruleed chickpea tofu snow pea sprouts, cherry tomato, cucumber, pineapple, 22 jicama, and green mango salad, Tarragon gnocchi, green pea and asparagus, and Mushroom risotto, truffle oil and puffed rice on offer, no matter what your preference, you will be delighted and those meat eaters amongst you might be tempted to even go meat-free.
