Whenever a restaurant pops up on my radar that offers a vegan tasting menu, I’m immediately sold. Tasting menus can be tricky – there are so many elements that have to come together just right to make not only a delicious experience that entices the palate, but a visual one as well, which is why I find it exciting when restaurants take on the challenge.
This is where North Bar and Kitchen comes in. I had seen their vegan tasting menu floating around social media spheres at the end of 2017 and they have been top of my list to try ever since. As it was my birthday recently, I thought it was the perfect time to give it a go.
We booked into the restaurant early on a Thursday night (we are now slaves to a diabetic cat who needs his insulin at 8 every night) and there was just one other table occupied when we arrived. The restaurant is on the West End of Leicester and occupies an old corner building on Hinckley Road. It’s welcoming with its big windows, and lovely, long wooden bar when you walk in. The restaurant is small, but intimate, and still maintains a feeling of cool modernism without seeming to try too hard. I love that there is an open kitchen too, so you can peek into all the action behind the scenes.
We started off with a bottle of wine, and were informed that all wines, apart from 2, are vegan friendly. All the wines are moderately priced for a restaurant, and we settled on the Primitivo di Manduria DOC ‘Talo’ for £30. It was delicious – light but still with some vibrant flavours that paired well with all our dishes.
Andrew and I both pre-ordered the 5 course vegan tasting menu, and our first dish was a gin and tomato veloute with parsley oil. I loved this dish – it was rich, tangy, earthy – very unlike any kind of tomato soup I’ve had before. Andrew wasn’t sure about the flavours at first but did come around to it and subsequently devoured the lot. The only thing missing was a little bread roll to go with it. Actually, a basket of bread on the table would have been nice in general.
The second dish was a glazed king oyster mushroom with coriander, apple, walnuts, truffle cream and dashi broth on the side. The mushroom was incredibly meaty – it almost had the texture of calamari and was perfectly seared on both sides. The dish itself was a bit sweet which was not quite to my taste, but the dashi broth was perfection. It was a rich, deep, umami flavoured broth that I could eat for days.
Our third dish was a smoked polenta cake with spiced carrots and beetroots. This dish again was lovely and very earthy. The veggies were perhaps a little too earthy for me (I’m not a huge fan of beets). It also came with a side of curried chickpeas which were delicious – it’s a hearty, warming dish that is perfect comfort food.
Our fourth dish was a medditerranean vegetable terrine with broccolini, parsnip crisps and a creamy red pepper sauce. This dish was hands down my favourite. The vegetable terrine was cooked perfectly with a lovely balance of flavours that were accompanied by a lovely, light red pepper sauce. The parsnip crisps were delicious too and gave a nice bit of texture to the dish.
Dessert. Well, what can I say about dessert other than it was a sugar bomb. It consisted of a meringue made with aquafaba (chickpea juice), with mango sorbet, raspberry gel, chocolate crumb and a sugar tuille. Hands down for presentation. Andrew loved this dish. So much so that he ate his and half of mine (and then I had to peel him off the ceiling). Don’t get me wrong, the flavours were nice but I don’t have a sweet tooth (unless we’re talking chocolate), so I only had a couple bites.
Overall our experience was really nice and the food delicious. You could tell the chefs took great care in creating and executing the vegan menu. Unfortunately they don’t have a vegan dish on the a la carte menu, but if you book in advance I’m sure they can create something for you. I will definitely be going back!