How to see London: solo & vegan

It had been seventeen years since I last visited London.

Long enough that the city I returned to felt entirely new. Different neighborhoods, different schedule, a different decade of myself. The last time I was here, I was not vegan. I was also not someone who had spent years discovering the beauty of being alone in a city and find that exciting. Which means, in a way, I was visiting London for the first time.

It’s really easy to forget the impact solo travel has on you until you’ve landed and it’s just you alone with the curious agenda you made up. You get your first coffee. You have a journal beside you. You’re breathing in air that feels way more exciting than the oxygen you left at home. Sitting by yourself in a cafe in a new city has that effect. The confidence of I can do this. The expansive and slightly vertiginous thought, the world is so much bigger than the life I left at home.

It’s hard not to disappear into that feeling. To start wondering what life would look like if you kept doing this at a regular pace, or if you went further. If you adjusted your whole life to stay in alignment with how you feel when you’re abroad. Travel gets me like that every time. Makes me question the way I live, the things I do, the people I know, what I spend time doing, the time of day I eat, what I drink. I fall in love with a place and spend weeks after returning trying to replicate it at home. And I’m always left with the same unanswered question: was it because I was away from my normal routine that I loved every bit of it? Or did I love it because it felt more like who I am?

London didn’t answer my question. But it asked it loudly, and beautifully, for several days in a row.

I gave myself one instruction: explore a new neighborhood every day, with no schedule and nowhere to be. Popping into ceramic shops on Hackney Road, afternoon hours lost on Portobello Road, vintage shop after vintage shop on Brick Lane and Cheshire Street, feeling the energy of Shoreditch like it was lifted from the British 70s punk era. And vegan food everywhere.

London is a standout for plant-based eating. Not the obligatory one sad salad on an otherwise carnivore menu. London has entire restaurants, entire neighborhoods, entire menus built around plants and doing it beautifully.

Make a reservation at Mallow in advance.

Mallow sits right in the heart of Borough Market, and it is without question the most beautiful plant-based restaurant. I arrived right when it opened and still waited. I tried three times that morning. On the third attempt, I was seated upstairs in a room full of natural light. It was plush and open and lovely.

Mallow is 100% plant-based, created by the team behind Mildreds, and the menu changes every six months to align with what’s in season. I started with a matcha — a necessary beginning — and ordered the focaccia with their onion butter, which already was outstanding. The Masala with rice was equal parts spice and warmth, impeccably balanced. Every element felt considered. Mallow was, easily, my favorite meal in London.

+ Don’t do what I did and show up without a reservation hoping for the best. Book ahead. The upstairs room is worth it.

Dishoom — bring a table of friends to feast with.

Dishoom needs no introduction in London. But what a vegan traveler might not know: the moment you sit down, they hand you a dedicated vegan menu. A proper menu, with enough (too many) options that you’ll spend too long deciding between.

Dishoom is meant for sharing. Family style, ordering broadly, passing plates. As a solo diner, I had to exercise restraint I didn’t entirely want to exercise. I followed the server’s lead and ordered the Pau Bhaji, which arrived soft and delightful. I wished I’d ordered three. The Chole Chawal, a chickpea dish served with rice, was exceptional. The server warned me about the heat level. I said: let’s do it. If you’re high-heat tolerant, don’t hesitate. If you’re not, there’s plenty on the menu that won’t challenge you. I rounded it out with roti, warm and perfect alongside everything else.

Dishoom in Shoreditch is just a wonderful place to eat solo.

+ If you can go with another person, go with another person. You’ll want to try more of the menu than one stomach can manage alone.

Seek out Ima for creative vegan sushi.

I will always seek out vegan sushi. Everywhere I go, if it exists, I’ll find it. I believe it’s a genuinely creative undertaking. The gap between vegan sushi done well and vegan sushi done out of obligation, like a thoughtless side salad or french fries, is enormous. Ima, tucked into Exmouth Market in Clerkenwell, falls firmly in vegan sushi done well.

It’s a smaller restaurant, busy with energy. The menu is almost entirely plant-based, and the creativity is evident in everything: a Mango ‘Tuna’ Roll with seaweed caviar, a Sticky Aubergine Unagi Roll, a Parsnip ‘Crab’ Tempura. I’d go again without hesitation.

+ Go for the sharing platters over individual rolls to get the full picture of what they’re doing. Or get both. :-)

On Mildreds — a caveat.

Mildreds is an institution. One of London’s original plant-based restaurants, with multiple locations and genuinely devoted fans. I dined at the Soho location with a London friend who loves it. On our visit, something about it didn’t hit the spot for me. She suspected we’d ordered the wrong things; she’d had noteworthy meals there before. I didn’t leave with the impression I was hoping for.

+ Mildreds stays on the list, with the honest note that your experience may vary.

The neighborhoods — where to spend your time.

London rewards the wanderer. Here’s where I’d send you:

Hackney Road & Columbia Road — for ceramics, home goods, and independent shops that will have you consider starting from scratch on everything you own, and only with their goods. Klei, Hackney Essentials, In Bloom & In Habit, Straw London, Nom Living.

Brick Lane & Cheshire Street, Shoreditch — for vintage shopping done properly. Hunky Dory Vintage, Serotonin Vintage, Brick Lane Market, World of Echo for vinyl. The whole stretch has the energy of a city that’s been cool long enough with zero need to announce it. I stopped into Gecko Coffeehouse for work meetings between my vintage exploring.

Portobello Road, Notting Hill — I grew up watching the film, quoting it before I was old enough to understand it. I knew this was the neighborhood I needed to be in. I spent nearly an entire day on my own schedule, with nowhere to be but the market shopping cobalt blue goods, small-batch linen, Nepalese-made bags, scarves and woven blankets I couldn’t carry home.

One last thing about London.

As a New Yorker, London was the city the subway dreams of being. I kept saying it: the Tube was clean, it ran on time, it made sense. I thought it smelled fine. Coming from Brooklyn, that’s an achievement.

London reminded me what it feels like to be somewhere on your own terms. I hadn’t taken a solo trip in a few years. I’d forgotten the quality of attention you bring to a place when you’re all alone in it. How much more you notice, how much more you feel.

I came home asking the question I always come home asking: was it the place, or was it the freedom? Was it London, or was it the expansive joy that shows up when I’m traveling alone?

I don’t have an answer. (Yet.)

I just know I’m already thinking about going back.

💌 Raye