When I moved to the UK, almost 4 years ago, I worked as an au pair in Hemel Hempstead. I lived with the family I was working for and in the summer they had French students coming over a few times. They had classes, but also went on trips to London. As they were staying in my room I had to tidy up a little bit every time they left. One day one of them left behind a leaflet brought from London. It was about vegan&vegetarian places. That’s how I came across a website with a list of nice restaurants in London. I was vegetarian, but it was at that time I became more and more interested in the vegan lifestyle. That’s why I looked for vegan restaurants and the first one I found was ‘Vitao Organic’ in Soho. There wasn’t a lot of information and I wasn’t that familiar in London yet, but the very next time I went to London I decided to go and have a look.
I couldn’t find it straight away, but eventually I found this lovely little restaurant on a corner in Wardour Street. Very colourful and a lot of natural materials.. the kind of atmosphere where you assume that it’s all healthy and organic. And very important: the food looked great. But it was only when I took my first bites that I was sure I never had such delicious food in my life! The broccoli tasted like broccoli should taste like, all the sauces were so rich and all the flavours were just amazing. Since then, every time I went to London, I never skipped the opportunity to have my lunch over there. I also took whoever wanted to come with me and every one of them agreed this was the most delicious food.

A few years ago they moved from Wardour Street to Oxford street (what can only mean they do very very well, I wasn’t surprised), they changed the name to ‘Vantra’ and I remember it was very hard to wait until they reopened. But their new restaurant is lovely and worth the wait, the atmosphere is even better and there are even more delicious food options!
They give you the possibility to have take away, but you can also choose to have your meal over there, what then leaves you with 2 options. To fill up a container(they have 2 sizes) or to have it on a large plate. For the containers there are fixed prices and for the plates you pay the food by weight. It’s just what you prefer. You can choose whatever you want from the buffet, what is nice because then you can taste a bit of everything. But do you feel like having a more romantic dinner? From 17:30 there is also a very impressive menu a’ la carte available.
When it comes to drinks they didn’t make it easy to make a choice. They have so many options, from juices, smoothies and milkshakes, to cocktails, coffee and tea. What I really like is that by all nutritious drinks they wrote down how you will benefit from it. It can make the choice a bit easier I guess as you know exactly what to order when you feel like you need a health boost or you’re desperate for some mental clarity!

And after you enjoyed every bite and every sip, I’m sure you can’t resist to order one of the beautiful raw desserts. Chocolate cake, cheesecake, brownies.. to name a few!

What is also important and I would like to mention, is that they’re not only vegan and mainly use organic ingredients, but their dishes are also free from: gluten, nuts, gmo and sugar. Plus they do not deep fry or use a microwave. What means the food is super healthy and nutritious. What more do you want?

Since I moved to London 3 years ago I discovered a lot more nice restaurants with vegan options, but even until today ‘Vantra” is still my favourite restaurant. That’s why I wanted to honour them by not only telling you they are the greatest, but also by making them my first hotspot I post!

If you want to check out their website then click here.

Do you know Vantra? Or are you now desperate to go? Let me know what you think of this beautiful and healthy vegan restaurant!