THE new vegan menu at Carluccio’s, an Italian restaurant near the Forbury gardens, is surprisingly good.
Veganuary, which started in 2014, has become more and more popular each year — when people are encouraged to go vegan for just January.
This year, several fast food chains have advertised new vegan burgers, including at Burger King and KFC. But restaurants, too, have responded to the rising popularity of Veganuary, adding special vegan menus this month.
One of those is Carluccio’s: a chain of 75 restaurants across the UK and Ireland, with their Reading branch at Davidson House, the Forbury.
Their special Veganuary menu — called Cucina Verde, Italian for green kitchen — runs until February 11 and features a wide range of starters, mains and desserts.
Both the variety on the menu and the taste of the food were surprisingly good. Starting off with a bottle of Sangiovese red wine and giant olives was reassuring: a prompt reminder you can still have nice things going vegan.
Also on the menu as starters were hummus and crispbread, focaccia, butternut squash and gnocchi, and marinated artichokes. The pan-fried chickpea fritters, however, stood out and their crispy texture and sharp capers made for a tastier starter than you would find on many a-la-carte menus.
The pasta, in the shape of little ears, was made just of flour, semolina and water. While the texture was firmer than pasta made with egg, the dish was still nice with tomato sauce, rocket and flaked almonds.
The top mains dish is the veganese — an aubergine escalope in breadcrumbs with chilli vegan mayonnaise, a charred lemon and long, tenderstem broccoli. It was crunchy and tangy, with a pinch of heat from the mayo.
The dessert menu was limited to two options, both polenta. One is polenta with pear sauce and the other is with raspberry sauce. The sauces were both slightly sweet but not too much, while the texture of the polenta was a bit mushy. (But perhaps only because huge chocolate meringues had caught my eye.)
The staff were friendly and informative, and adeptly answered several questions about the vegan menu. The restaurant has recipe books for sale on display, an open-plan kitchen and specials scribbled across a large whiteboard on the wall.
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