SAF
152-154 Curtain Road,
London EC2 (020 7613 0007).
Meal for Two, including wine and service, £100
I have a grudging respect for the vegan ethical position. Or at least, I hold it in higher regard than that of the 'meat is murder' dairy- and egg-eating vegetarian who has failed to clock that to produce the animals that make all the milk and eggs lots of boy baa lambs and chicks must be killed. The vegan position is consistent. The problem is, you can admire their philosophy and still hate their cooking, and some of the worst food I have ever endured has been in the name of veganism. It's not that I actively seek the death of an animal. But hell, a little light slaughter does seem to make things taste better.
That said, there are robust culinary traditions which are packed full of flavour and happen to be vegan, among them those of Japan (the vegetarian bit, natch, not the raw fish bit). I was therefore intrigued by the arrival in London of Saf, a weirdly international mini-chain of high-end vegan restaurants with branches in Munich, Istanbul and now London's Shoreditch, which takes some of its inspiration from Japanese food. Hurrah! I love Japanese food. At last, a vegan restaurant I could be nice about.
And in some ways I can. It's all very Shoreditch in a manmade-materials, post-industrial, dangly-light sort of way. They serve cocktails. Oversweetened bad ones, but cocktails all the same. I am glad that vegans now have somewhere funky to go. Then again, I'm also glad fully grown men who like to wear nappies and pretend to be babies have clubs they can go to indulge their desires, too. It doesn't mean I want to be a member. Still, I ate a few pleasant things at Saf. Maki rolls made with strangely satisfying 'parsnip' rice, with avocado and mushroom, had a pleasant crunch. Edamame beans, dragged from the pods with our teeth, were as they should be.
Other things fell well short. These were grouped into two categories: dishes which were entirely vegan, and which would not have been improved by animal products, but which were not as good as they could be; and those items which were just lousy ideas that deserved to be strangled at birth. In the first category a tray of nuts and olives brought unimpressive smoked almonds, 'curry' cashews which tasted of Pot Noodle, and some thoroughly mediocre olives. The least they can do is source a good olive. Similarly, in a more evolved dish of what was described as caviar - tasteless jelly beads flavoured with chive - a bunch of ingredients were piled on what they called a sweet potato latke. A latke it was not. A cold, mushy disc of something dun-coloured it most certainly was. It was cold because most ingredients here are cooked at below 48C. Apparently this is better for you. Believe me, it ain't better for the food. They should have just fried it in olive oil. It would have been both vegan and nice to eat rather than vegan and nasty. At the end of the meal an apple sorbet was gritty and insipid.
The worst of the bad dish ideas was the 'cheese' course. What in God's name are they doing with a fake-cheese course? If they like cheese so bloody much, stop being vegan. Go mad with cheese. Have a cheese orgy. The flavoured sludge they serve here, made from torturing nuts until they turn to mush, isn't cheese. It's cruel and unusual punishment. The fats in these 'cream cheeses' were weird and coated the mouth with a slick of unmovable grease.
A lasagne was, of course, nothing of the sort. It was a pile of overchopped, overacidulated vegetables pressed into one of those cheffy metal rings so it looked snazzy. A mushroom croquette also wasn't, though a marinated mushroom on the side was pleasant. Alongside this a 'Caesar' salad made with gritty 'kalamata almond croutons' - more cruelty to nuts - made me want to hurt someone in the kitchen a lot to see how they liked it.
At the end, though, there was an apple cheesecake which, stupid, misleading name aside, had an interesting halva-like quality and a crisp biscuity base. It was the best thing we ate by a mile, and proof that nice food can come out of the kitchen here.
Saf is an interesting, even admirable idea. They have a pronounced ethical position and they want to elevate vegan food, and there's nothing wrong with that. At the moment, though, they are simply trying too hard. And being too cruel to the poor, blameless nuts.
