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I had originally published this vegan travel article about 2 years after my UK trip. Basically I went to the UK in 2019 & wrote this in 2021. It’s now 2022 and guess what friends? I’m going back! One of my dear friends is getting married so I get to go back to London & explore even more vegan restaurants.

So, I thought it would be fun for myself & for you all to go through & update this article before I venture across that beautiful pond again. I love discovering new places but I also love to return to my fav vegan spots to see if they’re still worth the hype & to devour those tasty vegan eats of course.

Vegan Travel – London

2019 was a really great year for me; I finally got to experience the UK!!! I had always wanted to “cross the pond” but never had the time or the opportunity for such a trip. Fortunately for me, my hubby was already on tour with Alessia Cara & Shawn Mendes and they were finishing in London! We thought that was the perfect opportunity for me to join him and to adventure around Europe together.

Get ready for some awesome vegan travel…

My hubby is a director, producer & editor, he has been working with Alessia since the beginning of her career. I’ve even done her makeup several times for her music videos.

I arrived a couple of days before Aaron was wrapped which was kind of nice because I was TIRED! For real, jet lag is no joke! I met him at his hotel, The Intercontinental, which is the hotel that the tour had put him up in because it’s right at the O2 (concert venue). It’s a nice hotel but there’s really nothing around them except for the O2 & the shops at the O2. Which is great, but it’s not the London experience I would want for myself.

That being said, the 1^st day I got in my hubby had a few hours off before he had to be back at the venue for the show that night, so we decided to venture out & find some yummy vegan eats!

1. Lele’s Vegan Café – CLOSED

Atmosphere: Definitely recommend this place. It’s a cute little shop with a small made to order & takeaway counter and a few small seating areas.

SO! I just went to the website & it seems like Lele’s Vegan Café no longer exists BUT, the website takes you to Lele’s Vegan Baking. I guess they sell vegan baking mixes now, yum! 😋 While I’m sad to hear they’re no longer, I’m happy to know that the vegan business is still thriving just in a different way.

The Food: So yummy! Guys, I freaken love Croissants & Lele’s had the prettiest, biggest, most fluffiest vegan croissants; I’m drooling thinking about it. I sent my hubby back there the next day for more croissants while trie to sleep my jet lag off.

Overall Rating: 4/5 – Next time I would love to try something from their menu.

Get The: Croissants, you will not be disappointed, I promise. We also grabbed a carrot lox & cream cheese bagel, which was just as delicious as the croissant.

When we got back to the hotel I passed out for hours! I woke up not realizing the time & calling out to the hubs wondering where the heck he could be. Then I realized it was like 8pm & he was working at the show, haha. So naturally I slept for the rest of the night.

The next day I met up with a dear friend of mine who moved from Toronto to London and I got to meet her beautiful fiancé (& in just under a month she’ll be her wife) and their sweet angel furbaby Meryl. They gave me the best little tour of London & took me to some of their low-key fav spots. And… they introduced me to, possibly my favorite vegan restaurant of all time… Genesis!

2. Genesis

Atmosphere: I am so inlove with this place. First of all the décor is so freaken cool. It’s pink & rose gold, & wood, & white, & steampunk/alchemy/chemist. I dunno it’s cool. There’s massive pink benches & bright trendy fluorescent lighting. There’s a huge downstairs section as well.

Now, at this time I know that Genesis has since moved from the location I had visited. I am hoping to be able to eat at their new location but it’s a little further from where I normally visit. AND, at this time it seems like they are closed looking for a new head chef. I really hope this place thrives again bc it continues to be the talk of my best vegan eats, 3 years later.

The Food: The food is incredible! Such a unique mix of different styles of food from all over the world. I had so many menu items as I ended up frequenting this spot over and over again haha, and I have to say, everything was delicious. Like legit, everything!

Overall Rating: 5/5 – I don’t think they can do any better, truly, we are not worthy!

Get The: Korean BBQ Wings & their Hot Dog if it’s back on the menu. I ordered the hot dog every time I was there!

After a long day of touring around I went back to the hotel to get ready for The Shawn Mendes concert. It was their last performance so I was super lucky to be able to check it out & hangout with the hubs while he was working.

The show was great & the after party was so much fun. Shawn had rented the entire bowling alley at the Hollywood Bowl (At the Shops at O2) for a wrap party for the entire crew & guests. The evening was a ton of fun, Shawn Mendes was polite and sweet as pie, and it was nice to be with my husband after being apart for over a month.

The next day we were switching hotels. Now that the tour was over and we were officially on vacation, we didn’t need to be staying in that location. We had booked with The Curtain prior to my arrival & this place was perfect! Somehow we lucked out and found one of the hippest hotels in the city. It has an amazing roof top resto/lounge/pool/day party where we went up to check it out upon check-in because our room wasn’t quite ready. It was a very warm day so the patio was packed. But we were immediately seated and had a couple of cocktails before getting to our room.

I just went to their website & it looks like The Curtain was bought by The Mondrian so, it’s still there just under a different name/ownership. The vibe of the hotel was speakeasy retro 60s/70s modern day aesthetic. They have a few restaurants within the compound & even have their own private members club that all hotel guests have access to, including their nightclub. We’re not really club people, I bartended in nightclubs for 16 years before “retiring” 3 years ago, so we’re good haha.

That being said we had a fun time exploring the massive & beautiful hotel. The funny thing was, this hotel ended up being walking distance to our new favourite vegan resto, Genesis, so that was really awesome how that worked out. And probably why we ended up eating there so much! The hotel is located in the super popular & trendy neighborhood of Shoreditch where there is a ton of great shopping and pubs and places to discover.

The next couple of days we did a lot of walking around & touring the city. Checked out Buckingham Palace, The London Eye, Big Ben even though he was under construction, Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, The Jack the Ripper Tour (we just walked around the areas of Shoreditch where Jack the Ripper was said to have prowled), Camden Town, Soho, Electric Avenue, Oxford Street, Bond Street, Leicester Square, Carnaby, Boxpark and more.

We had a jam packed couple of days planned but we also knew we had to checkout this crazy burger joint my girlfriend had told me about… Mooshies! So we stopped there for a quick lunch before returning to our explorations.

3. Mooshies – CLOSED

Apparently Mooshies is permanently closed. Sad to see another vegan restaurant go. Restaurant ownership is a hard industry & even more so with a pandemic.

Atmosphere: Messy but cute vegan junk food. If that makes sense? There’s a lot going on inside but not in a bad way. In a punk meets Kawaii style. There’s a decent amount of seating & a small counter in the back where you order.  

The Food: Phat kid vegan food at it’s finest. Everything is very greasy, cheesy, chewy & super yummy. Think burgers & fries, mozzarella sticks, & milkshakes.

Overall Rating: 4/5 – When you’re craving this kind of food, it’s really cool to be able to go to a local resto and have it, just like everyone else in the world but without the death. Worth checking out for sure!

Get The: Cheese sticks & the What’s UR Beef burger

As the day drew to a close & we needed to get some dinner, we decided to take a 20 minute train ride up to Hackney to checkout what is known as… THE TEMPLE OF SEITAN!!! Haha it’s such a great name. For those of you who don’t know, seitan is made from wheat gluten & it’s a really cool product that allows you to mimic a bunch of different meat-like dishes.

4. Temple of Seitan

Atmosphere: When we arrived, there was a lineup!!! That’s how buzzy this place is. It’s like a shawarma, deli style, KFC, order to-go type place. Small but busy. 

The Food: If you want greasy fried vegan chicken (think KFC but no dead chicks), this is the place to be! One thing to note, all of the fried chicken items on the menu are the exact same ingredient/product. So don’t be dummies like my hubby & I and order 1 of everything to try because you’re essentially just ordering the same thing over and over again, haha. But other than that, it’s really tasty.

Overall Rating: 5/5 – The UK has some cool vegan joints & this one does not disappoint!

Get The: Temple Burger (Chick’n Fillet, Ranch Mayo, Bacon, Cheese, Lettuce, Pickles) I’m drooling, this is so unfair, haha.

The next day we had a tour to Stonehenge planned! I was using the Tiqets app to purchase all of our UK tours. It was super easy & their tickets all include line by-pass, which we found super helpful as it was quite, busy in April. The tickets included a 2-hour bus ride from the London train station to Stonehenge & back. But, before we went to catch the bus, we stopped by Boxpark to get some food to go.

5. What The Pitta

Atmosphere: Boxpark is essentially a collective of container stores built into a little compound. I’ve noticed more and more cities are starting to build places like these. They’re really cool & a smart way to put a lot of shops/restos in one place. What The Pitta is on the 2^nd floor in the middle area. Each venue has it’s own container but they’re all surrounded by communal areas with tables & benches/seating areas. Very trendy, matte black, wood, & greenery.

At this time, it seems as though What The Pitta has blown up & now has 5 locations! They’re no longer in the Shoreditch Boxpark location but still near by. I cannot wait to go back to this place though. Another thing to note, Shoreditch Boxpark has a ton of other vegan restos that we will be hitting up this time around, yay!

The Food: I literally took one bite & was blown away. The cuisine is Döners, Gyros, Falafels, etc. The food is incredibly tasty. We ended up ordering from them another time because we just couldn’t get enough.  

Overall Rating: 5/5 – I wish we had one near us! If you are in the Hamilton area, checkout these great vegan eats here.

Get The: Anything, I promise you’ll love it. We got the Döners.

Stonehenge was incredible. It is so crazy to think that these enormous stones have been around for over 5,000 years and that we truly don’t know how they were erected. As cool and beautiful as photos of Stonehenge are, they don’t do it justice. This is a prehistoric monument and experiencing it in person gave me goosebumps.

I am so grateful to my husband for being able to make this trip happen. We had such an incredible time and we got to eat some pretty freaken amazing vegan food. Our trip didn’t end here as we were heading to Paris after London, but this story is ending here. I hope you get a chance to try these yummy vegan spots on your next trip to London. You can checkout our Paris adventure here.

London Travel Musts –

To sum up my update, I am beyond grateful to get to visit here again. I’m looking forward to revisiting some of these places but I’m most excited to discover new ones. Second to the wedding of course.

Make sure you stay tuned for the updated Vegan Travel – London Edition!

Vegan Travel – London Edition – A Blog About Stuff