I have visited Raw at La Suite West twice before to sample their amazing vegan afternoon tea, the last time was for my hen do.

On both occasions I had a good look at the dinner menu and knew I wanted to come back to try it out. But as I’m an East London girl there’s usually somewhere closer to home so I hadn’t got round to it yet.

Mum and I went to see Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre in Soho as my Christmas/Birthday present. We usually see a Sir Matthew Bourne (side note – so glad he was recognised in the New Year’s Honours!) production at Sadlers Wells in Islington so have dinner at The Gate but this year it was a revival of Sleeping Beauty which we saw in 2012 and as Miss Saigon is closing in London at the end of February I didn’t want to miss out. (see what I did there? 😉 ) So we decided we would head to Raw after the matinee performance.

Raw is situated in the La Suite West boutique hotel just round the corner from both Queensway (Central Line) and Bayswater  (Circle Line) tube stations.

The restaurant is small but really smart and modern with low lighting. There was some music playing it was very quiet so almost not worth having on.

The menu consists of vegan items many of which are raw. There is no alcohol served but a long list of soft drinks including smoothies and mocktails as well as an extensive list of teas. For starter you can have soup or a small salad. I liked the look of the shitake mushroom soup with wakame seaweed but decided to go for a dessert rather than a starter, which I’ll get to later!

For mains you can either go for a larger salad or share some tasting platters. We decided to go for the platters. With so many delicious things it was difficult to decide what to go for!

 

First up we have golden beetroot with a cranberry cashew cheese and orange and fennel. I was a bit cautious of the fennel but it wasn’t overpowering at all. The cheese was gorgeous and really went well with the earthy beetroot.

Next was filo parcels stuffed with leek and almond feta, the pastry was lovely and crisp, the leeks sweet and the cheese creamy and tangy. As I love making my own almond feta at home I might try doing this for myself!

Our final tasting platters was glazed tempeh with cauliflower puree and lemon kale. I find tempeh a bit hit and miss but I really enjoyed this with the glaze and sesame seeds. After not being too fond of cauliflower for years I’ve grown to love it recently and the dehydrated kale on this dish added a lovely crispness.

The three dishes all tasted really fresh and we were comfortably full without feeling heavy!

For dessert I couldn’t refuse the sticky toffee pudding with white miso ice cream. It was heaven on a plate! The cake was light and the gorgeous sticky sauce wasn’t too sickly sweet. The miso in the ice cream gave it a lovely tang that wasn’t overpowering and cut through the sweetness of the cake well. The wafer was also really tasty and you can’t see in the photo but there’s another square if cake behind it so it really was a sizeable dessert!

The meal came to £40 for everything including sparkling water, peppermint tea and 12.5% service. I think this was really reasonable for what we had and would recommend you try out Raw for yourselves.

Plumes x