Of course beef should be on the menu in meat-free restaurants – and I’m a vegan evangelist

Walk down any British high street and there’ll be a raft of shuttered restaurants, tattered menu boards streaked with rain, another business owner’s dreams visibly dashed. In the first quarter of last year alone, 569 UK restaurants closed, with insolvencies up 55 per cent from 2022. No wonder vegan restaurants are struggling.

Full disclosure, I edited the magazine Vegan Living in the glory days of plant-eating, 2016 to 2019, when every day brought news of another chilli-tofu-bite or pea-based-bacon launch, and meat-eating seemed a blood-soaked throwback to the days of brutal Victorian slaughterhouses.

The future was Instagrammable, pastel-pink restaurants, cursive neon signs and a menu of innovative plant foods.

Or it was, until the perfect storm of Brexit, the pandemic, and a cost of living crisis which together removed a vast number of potential staff, destroyed footfall and raised restaurant food costs by 22 per cent and fuel costs by up to 80 per cent.

Though the vegan population still hovers somewhere between 2 and 4 per cent, vegans tend to be young, with less money for eating out. That’s why vegan restaurants are now the catering equivalent of small herbivorous dinosaurs, gazing in fear at the approaching meteor – and why at least one enterprising vegan restaurant owner has started serving a few meat dishes alongside the plants.

Adonis Norouznia, who owns Nomas Gastrobar in Macclesfield, is a committed vegan but admits, “I would rather change something on my menu and stay open,” after facing closure due to a lack of customers. Serving meat is, he says, his “last option”.

Naturally, there has been an outcry – vegans are not known for their easy-going approach to meat-eating – followed by a backlash to the backlash, supporting Adonis.

But as a guilty ex-vegan who still tries to eat mostly plants, alongside cheese, eggs and occasional bursts of fish, I don’t blame him. Being a purist is fine when the punters are clamouring for cauliflower steaks and begging for jackfruit bibimbap. It’s harder to remain entirely unsullied by blood and guts when you’re about to lose everything.

Regardless of squeamishness, veganism doesn’t confer an allergy to meat, and having a steak in the same fridge as a carrot burger is not the equivalent of a loose peanut in a room full of anaphylactic people.

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Neither is it a religion, whereby mingling pork and parsnip is an affront to a judgmental deity. It’s a health-based or morally driven (or both) lifestyle choice, and while the militants might prefer to eat in establishments that harm only leaves (very gently, in whispers), the current turbulent economy means that realpolitik is the only way for small businesses to survive.

Some might argue that by offering meat, the restaurant is diluting its USP, and engineering its own downfall if vegans are repelled. Meat-eaters have a vast range of options, could they risk nobody going at all?

I would say, however, that when I was vegan (hey, did I mention I was a vegan?) I had no problem with visiting meaty restaurants, as long as there was a vegan option available that was slightly better than the meal I was once served in France – three withered boiled potatoes, carefully tucked into a small wooden hutch.

Vegans are still a tiny minority, despite the boom in “plant-based” – often ultra-processed – products. Like all trends, it engulfed us for a while, then the tide receded.

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To succeed as a vegan restaurant nowadays, there must either be a perfect location; (ideally, somewhere with wellness-obsessed yummy mummies constantly passing); a fabulous, semi-famous chef who is “dominating the plant-based space”; or a dramatic lack of competition. Ideally, all three. Without those, no matter how delicious the offering, the majority of potential customers will glance at the menu, see no familiar fish, poultry or meat dishes, and move on.

If veganism is ever to become a genuinely popular alternative to eating animal products, vegans must adapt and assimilate, understanding that forcing a plant patty on someone who fancies fish and chips is counter-productive.

If vegans can have their needs met with a menu geared to their needs while meat eaters are thrown a well-grilled bone, it seems like the perfect solution for any troubled restaurateur. And if I can get a table, I’m in.

The Allotment, Manchester

1-3 Cathedral Gates, Manchester M3 1SW

Casual fine dining in charmingly rustic surrounds. Try the warming salt and pepper tofu laksa.

No Twelve, Nottingham

2-3 Eldon Chambers, Wheeler Gate, Nottingham, NG1 2NS

Casual and fine dining, “small plates”. Try the amazing “faux camembert”.

Mallow Borough Market

1 Cathedral St, London SE1 9DE

The Mildreds team bring low-waste, “100 per cent plant-based” eating to a beautiful Victorian building. Try porcini walnut date borek with preserved lemon tabbouleh.

Gauthier, Soho

21 Romilly St, London, WID 5AF

Superb fine dining with seasonal tasting menus. Try “Brioche fluff” with lettuce, lovage and watercress herb oil.

Mono, Glasgow

10-12 King’s Court, King St, Glasgow, G1 5RB

A cool but welcoming arts and music café-bar, with freshly made vegan food. Try the tasty, homemade brown butter gnocchi.