Vegan and vegetarian food scene in Copenhagen – Part 1

I think I've been promising you for over a year now to write something about Copenhagen's vegan and vegetarian food scene. So now finally, I got around to it. Today I'm starting a series of I don't know how many parts, but this is the start anyway. I would like to hear from you, if you are interested in more of this kind of posts.

In the first part I'm introducing a couple of my favourite veggie restaurants here, where I spend a lot of time, and one place, where I want to go more.

Veggie Heroes

• Blegdamsvej 106, 2100 København Ø

Veggie Heroes with their endearing logo is one of my standard hangouts, as you can eat a great Asian meal very cheaply. The restaurant is fully vegan, and they have an all-you-can-eat-buffet, but also a small menu for dumplings, soups etc. I usually am not a fan of buffets or all-you-can-eat, but this place is just brilliant and so convenient.

They have all sorts of Chinese sauces, noodles, rice, pancakes, fresh salads, vegan sushi and nice organic drinks on offer. The atmosphere is very relaxed, and it's genuinely a nice place to spend some time. Like I mentioned, the prices are affordable and the staff are very nice. I always feel like home here.

I have found some favourites in the buffet that I'm eating every time. These include: soy “lamb” with bell peppers, Chinese pancakes with vegetables, deep fried soy “chicken”, and lovely fried rice and noodles. There are many more excellent options, but I mostly stick to the same favourites. Maybe I'm boring, but these dishes are just too good to miss.

There are also nice organic lemonades, vegan wines and beers to go with the meal. I normally eat too much when we go here, but every now and again I think that's fine.

Madenitaly

• Holbergsgade 22, 1057 København

Madenitaly is a great little vegetarian café/restaurant, with lots of vegan options as well. Their wonderful Roman style pizza slices are definitely a winner with their crispy crusts and inventive toppings. They used to have a food stall at Copenhagen Street Food on Papirøen, before the place closed down, and now they have this great restaurant very close to the main touristic bits of Nyhavn.

The secret is truly in the pizza dough, and it makes probably the best pizza crust I've ever had. The dough is made with a high quantity of water and goes through a long rising process. In the end it's very fluffy yet crispy. Some of my favourite toppings have been potato and truffle, upside down baked onion and olive, and roasted peppers. My partner is very keen on the different seitan pizzas.

They don't just serve pizza, there are also pasta dishes, seitan frikadelles, sandwiches, sourdough bread and desserts on offer. I had a mushroom and truffle pasta once and my partner tried the seitan frikadelles. They were both excellent meals enjoyed with some crispy Pinot Grigio.

I also have their booklet A guide to create the perfect pizza, which I'm planning to follow in order to improve my own pizza making skills. They even hold cooking courses and tastings, so I might take part in those at some point.

This place is also very welcoming and you will be taken good care of here. I'm always happy to return.

Plant Power Food

• Fælledvej 15, 2200 København

I've only been once to this place, but I would like to go more. It's not far from my home, and every time I go past, I longingly look at the place and try to have a sneak peak of people's plates.

It's a fully vegan café, or plantbased, as people have started calling it. They have a good selection of tempting sounding brunch and tapas options, and the whole menu sounds so good.

When we went there a few weeks ago, I had a mushroom sandwich with miso and rosemary marinated mushrooms with mixed mashed roots, served with pickled red onions, spicy sauce and mixed baby leaves in a charcoal sourdough bun. It was an excellent and good looking lunch. Their food is very colourful, which is always nice.

They also do party catering, which is good to keep in mind in case organising some bigger parties.

How did you find this first part of veggie eating in Copenhagen series? Are you interested in seeing more places, or not so much? My apologies for lack of outdoor/indoor photos of the restaurants, I'll try to improve in this regard for the next post. You can also visit the websites of each restaurant, if you are interested in seeing more: Veggie Heroes, Madenitaly and Plant Power Food.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Favourite eateries in my area – Chalk Valley Farm & Kitchen / The Stable / Tap Room

I want to introduce to you three further favourite eateries of mine around my area in Southampton. All of these serve very nice veggie food, although they are not purely vegetarian places. Here are three more in case you missed my first post in this series.

Chalk Valley Farm & Kitchen

Chalk Valley is an excellent organic burger place and has been my favourite ever since they opened a few years ago. They use organic and local produce and are very ethical in their approach. You can choose your bun, patty and toppings for your burger yourself. They have the most excellent veggie patty and other wonderful toppings to choose from. The skin-on-fries are so tasty and often they have a special side salad on offer. Chalk Valley have opened larger premises this month, so I should visit them soon again to check it out.

The Stable

The Stable is just a dream place for me due to their offering: cider and pizza! They have a huge selection of ciders, of which you can take a tasting board, if you can't quite decide what to drink from the vast selection, or just want to get to know several ciders. They serve pizzas, pies and salads. I normally always have the pizza margherita with their house chilli oil. The crust is crispy and thin with such tasty toppings, just perfect for me. I never mind sitting for longer in this place, as the atmosphere is relaxed and fun. The Stable is a chain, so you might find one near you as well.

Tap Room

Tap Room is a very friendly pub close to my place. I always feel welcome, and enjoy spending time there. Their cheesy fries are just lovely when you have a smaller hunger, but mainly I love their Living On The Veg pizza and flatbread. They are filled with char-grilled vegetables, olives and cheese and served with a chilli mayo on the side. This is basically my Friday evening standard meal. They of course also have a good selection of drinks.

Favourite eateries in my area – The Rockstone / Neighbourhood / Ebb & Flow

I want to introduce to you some of my favourite eateries around my area. I already once revealed to you that I live in Southampton, in southern England, and all of these pubs and restaurants are quite close to my home, which means that I'm a regular visitor. I will continue this series at some point, but here are three places first of all. They aren't vegetarian places, but all are very veggie friendly.

The Rockstone

Few years back I went to The Rockstone pub at least once a week to share a huge portion of vegetarian nachos with char-grilled vegetables with my partner. The so called Tuesday “nacho night” was a must for us in order to have a good week. It was always interesting to see the seasonally changing vegetables on the portion. Once we tried to have a portion each instead of sharing, but failed quite miserable, the portions are just so huge. We also had a running gag back in the day that I could possibly only take a starter and would even then be too full. That rule still applies to this place.

Lately I've been eating there less, but it's always a good place to go, if you want to get full of good veggie food and dine in a relaxed pub atmosphere with frequent live music performances. They mainly make burgers, but are very veggie and vegan friendly. This is the place, where I ate deep-fried smoked cheese for the first time. It was such a wicked starter, but unfortunately not on the menu anymore.

Last time when I went there, I had the Highway to Halloumi salad as a main and rye bread with red lentil hummus as a starter. The halloumi was properly fried and they didn't hold back with the amount of halloumi. The red lentil hummus inspired me to make my own recently. My partner had the Mexican burger, which is very tasty, spicy and huge, served with fries and a side salad.

Neighbourhood

Neighbourhood is quite a new restaurant with beautiful modern interior decoration serving a variety of dishes many of which are vegetarian. This is a great place to have something more unusual for lunch.

I really like their robata grilled aubergine, pepper, portobello mushroom, sweet potato with flatbread and hummus dish, and also the grilled market garden salad, which is depicted here. It contains barbeque marinated sweetcorn, courgette, peppers, fennel, red onion and halloumi cheese with a basil puree. I definitely have to go more often to this place.

Ebb & Flow

Ebb & Flow is a quaint café with mismatched crockery and cute details in the interior design. This is the type of place where I like to have a break on a shopping trip, just to have a coffee or a quick snack.

They serve an all day breakfast with a really good vegetarian fry up with quorn sausages and all the typical fixtures of an English breakfast. They also have a few vegetarian options for sandwiches and flatbreads. Pictured here are a grilled cheese and cherry tomato sandwich and a roasted spring onion and smoked harissa hummus sandwich. I also always take their pineapple juice with the meals.

I've only once eaten here in the evening and then chose the tapas option. They had several different veggie tapas and it was quite a nice meal. I would really like to taste one of their mains one day.