Are you rather freegan or vegan?

A description of the latest culinary tendencies – with the right addresses!

No meat, no restaurant? Of course not! The menus adapt to new habits. If you’re locavore, vegan or a disciple of raw food, you’ll find your spot to feast!

Vegans

Are there restaurants without meat, eggs, fish, honey and milk? Yes, sure! And it fits you best if you are vegan just as Bill Clinton, James Cameron, Moby and thousands of French. The concept of banning animal products from your daily menu is very popular in the United States.

The Gentle Gourmet in Paris is a restaurant which only has vegan food on offer. You should book a table since the place is crowded almost every night. On the menu: vegan foie gras, beetroot raviolis with cashew pesto ...

For those who want a quick lunch, the vegan fast food restaurant VG offer vegan burgers while Végébowl has Asian vegan cuisine on the menu, including the classics of Chinese cuisine in a vegan version (roasted pig with caramel sauce, Peking duck, ...). Veganovore is adapted to smaller budgets and is famous for its lime cream.

If you’re staying in Bruxelles, you should go for Mémé-Café or Delicatessen to make your vegan heart sing. In London, being vegan is even more simple as more than 100 restaurants offer vegan food: Check the list on veganlondon.com to find Indian places as well as English Pubs such the Coach and Horses on Greek Street.

Raw Vegans

If you are a disciple of raw food like Gwyneth Paltrow it’s a bit more complicated to find a place where to eat out. Quite a challenge to find a sandwich without bread, without meat and without cheese... Not impossible yet! The Parisian restaurant 42 degrés has its credo in its name: Above 42 degrees food is considered as cooked. The menu is inspired from the Parisian bistro scene, but it’s all raw. Without doubt it’s the only spot for a raw-vegan burger that comes with its Portobello mushroom bread and a nut steak. You may also like the vegetable cheeses and the “rawzarella” Carpaccio with truffle oil...

In London, the places to go are Bonnington Café, Dragonfly Wholefoods and Inspiral Lounge.

Locavores

On the locavore menu, only food coming from regional producers is allowed to reduce the carbon footprint. It’s an environmentalist choice which however doesn’t imply a renouncement to gourmet cuisine: In Paris, the three starred chef Yannick Alléno offers a “local lunch” every day in his restaurant Meurice. To accommodate smaller locavore budgets, Alléno has opened a second restaurant, le Terroir Parisien (5th arrondissement). Note that the restaurants of the Parisian Starwood hotels also offer a menu which is 100 per cent Ile-de-France. And if you only want to have a drink, the Gallia beer, brewed in Paris, will quench your thirst.

Freegans

Freegans get their food for free – out of dustbins or by collecting the leftovers at food markets. This form of protest against the consumer society has rallied thousands of French who search supermarket containers for still edible foods which are about to be squandered. A concept which is incompatible with the mere concept of restaurants? Not at all. At Freegan pony, an open-door canteen in a Parisian squat, a team of volunteers serves a dinner made from the leftovers of the Rungis supermarket every night. The modest price is 2 Euros. Ironic: You must book a table because the concept has generated such a buzz that the place is crowded with poor Parisians and curious people from the upper class.