Liverpool's Best Vegetarian Restaurants
When it comes to vegetarian restaurants and caf és, it's not just food minus valves, tendons, snouts and marrowbone jelly you need. A lot also depends on the atmosphere, where a generally bohemian vibe is essential, along with stripped pine tables, rustic wall hangings and toilets sturdy enough to cope with the consequences of all that fibre. Despite the fact that Liverpool isn't overwhelmed with strictly veggie cafés and restaurants - a peruse through the Yellow Pages will turn up precisely one - what there is offers plenty of good vibes.
The Egg Café on Newington is the city's sole veggie offering. It once called itself 'The Most Bohemian Place on Earth', which is probably only true if you consider pasta, cous cous, salads and garlic bread to be far out. It's not quite so hip these days thanks to an invasion of emo kids from the nearby relocated Quiggins, but it's still an excellent place to chow down on substantial veggie fare while listening to the likes of Howling Wolf on the stereo.
Despite the fact that The Green Fish on Upper Newington is even closer to Quiggins, there's a strange lack of emo kids here (they mustn't feel alienated enough by it). The austere yet tiny surroundings are made up of white walls make a mite too sterile for a typical veggie eatery, although they are broken up now and then with the odd painting, even if they tend to be as small and tasteful as the place itself. The food is fantastic, however, and probably the best of its kind in the city. When there's music on it's usually very quiet, as hushed as you will be by the food.
Keith's Wine Bar on Lark Lane is a much different proposition, and is as lively and positively boisterous as the Green Fish is quiet and nervous. A surprisingly large place with a few back rooms, this offers the largest selection of dishes - including a few meaty ones, for veggies dragging along carnivore companions. But the atmosphere is just as important as the food, and you may find yourself spending hours in here, watching the seedy but terribly alternative denizens of Lark Lane who occupy the place like a division of peacenik U.S. Marines. It's as much of a drinkery as an eatery and, as the name suggests, the wine is particularly recommended, if not cheap.
The Bohemia is another vegetarian café in all but adherence to not serving flesh on the premises. Its location at the busiest part of Smithdown Road may not lend itself to quiet tranquility, but once you close the door you could be in a typical bohemian veggie joint, as the name suggests. There's plenty of veggie alternatives on the menu, but it's the atmosphere that will appeal; from the old and hairy owners-stroke-staff, to the profusion of paintings everywhere, most of which are, to be fair, rubbish. There's also the odd Tarot reading going on, and most of the people who troll up at all hours of the day tend to spend an inordinate amount of time here. But that's what vegetarian cafés are about: chilling out, enjoying the surroundings and mellowing in the alternative chatter. The food is an extra. At least in Liverpool.
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