‘Butter is a perception': inside the UK's first plant-based Michelin-starred restaurant
Kirk Haworth, the owner and head chef of east London restaurant, Plates, hates the word vegan. 'At least seeing the word on a menu,' he says. 'Plant-based cooking is not a trend. Not for me, anyway. I've been doing it for eight years and it's just in my soul now.' And yet this week, Haworth became the first UK chef to win a Michelin star for cooking only plant-based food.
Plates is small, with just 25 covers. There are two sittings but it's full until the end of April. The phone is always engaged, and they can only cope with reservations today and tomorrow. For everything else, it's send an email.
'It's been like this since we opened – we had 76,000 people trying to book, and the website crashed,' he says. The restaurant opened a few months after he won the Great British Menu. 'I'm not sure anyone's reviewed it yet because they can't get a table.'
The diners, then, are diehard Haworth fans, and come in two sizes. The couple next to me have been waiting nine months for a table (it only opened in July), while a man waiting for the loo says he enjoyed his meal but had been brought by a friend 'and had no idea what this place was'.
Except for the two City guys discussing salaries at the bar, people have travelled from outside London, take photos of the outside but rarely of their food, and are noticeable for being dressed up rather than well-dressed. Hoxton is, after all, the ground zero of scuzzy hipsters, and this is an unusual location for a Michelin-starred restaurant – being just off the Old Street roundabout, and down the road from east London's more storied Turkish and Vietnamese restaurants.
It used to a be a restaurant/bar that closed after the pandemic – as did about 14% of restaurants in central London – but it was a vegan one, suggesting there's something in the filtered tap water.
To the food. It is a tasting menu, but a generous one. Among Haworth's favourites is a dish of slow-cooked leeks that comes crowned with a handful of frozen verjus (pressed unripe grapes). He also likes the barbecued mushrooms.
But it's the ones that should, by rights, be meat that stand out. A lasagne that feels like lasagne except made from mung and urad beans; the whole thing is then served – as if to remind you, again, of what it isn't – with a thumb of cucumber. Then there is bread, or rather, a bread-ish croissant rolled into a swirl and served with green 'butter' made from cashews. Asked why the non-butter butter is still called butter, Haworth says simply: 'Butter is a perception.'
Nowhere on the menu is the word 'vegan'. Nor 'plant-based', 'dairy-free' or even 'cow-lite'. 'Look, I hate imitation,' he says of the now popular fake meat and cheese market. Although beetroot has an uncanny ability to mimic beef, the meat and fish are not so much doctored as completely swapped out.
Everything here strikes a balance between casual and assiduity. Even its name, Plates, betrays nothing except that there will be a lot of them. The semi-open kitchen, which has that monastic serenity you only get when food is not cooked to order, is surrounded by a chef's counter made from four felled London trees.
Customers sit on mustard banquettes, the large Holiday Inn opposite hidden by cafe curtains. There is only one loo, but it has a huge basin carved from polished rock. The Michelin inspectors described it as cosy rather than cramped. But what looks cosy, in other words, is actually more posh.
In the truest three-figure Michelin tradition, there are some at-table sauce pouring performances. Plumes of dry ice fog hover over some dishes and you are told which cutlery to use, and in which order. The mocktails – including the 'yuzuade' – are fun but unnecessary. And some of the textures – some teeth-squeaking puffed rice – are a little overwhelming. Then there is the price – £90 before you've had anything to drink, which feels a little mighty for vegetables. Still, there are enough single diners dropping £150 to remind you this is a destination.
The Michelin system is not what it used to be. According to a report by University College London, starred restaurants are statistically more likely to close down than highly rated venues without the accolade. At this week's ceremony, there were fewer new one and two-star restaurants compared with last year, and no new three-star additions. But that doesn't mean it's not difficult to get one. 'I'd like to say it's harder to get a star with plant-based food, but I've cooked both and it's hard all round,' says Haworth, who trained at the French Laundry which is famous for its oysters and caviar.
The meal is finished with a cacao gateaux poured over with raw caramel. This is the dish that won him the Great British Menu. As such, it is twice the size of everything else. When it first opened, there were three desserts on the menu. When they drop a course, it's the risotto that makes way, not the rice pudding.
Though Haworth concedes the current food system is not sustainable, it was only after being diagnosed with Lyme disease that heexplored a plant-based diet, finding it helped mitigate the symptoms. 'But that's just me. Most of the people who come in aren't vegan. I'd say 99%. That must show you something'.
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