Best Vegetarian English breakfast in London for the Selective Flexitarian

A Full English breakfast is one of the UK’s culinary gifts to the world.  If you are not familiar with this dish it usually consists of bacon, sausages, eggs, grilled tomato and mushrooms, baked beans and occasionally  black pudding (a type of blood sausage). All that meat is now off the table with my new meat philosophy and shift towards eating less meat in general. Luckily there are plenty of places that now serve a Vegetarian Full English which is basically the standard Full English with the meat omitted and sometimes replaced with a plant-based sausage or other meat-like formation.  There are also plenty of places that serve a Vegan English breakfast where the eggs are replaced with scrambled tofu.  There are a lot of options in London for full vegan breakfast, that will be a later post…

Recently I was in London and I had a craving for an English breakfast.  Luckily I like the vegetarian version which I make for myself at home sometimes with free-range eggs that satisfy my requirement for all animal products to come from a responsibly raised source.  While it is easy to find a place that serves Vegetarian English breakfasts it is harder to find those that also have free-range eggs.  Luckily for me a place with walking distance from my hotel in London sold a version with free range eggs so I thought I would check it out.  The Sawyers Arms is a typical old-school London pub located right across the road from Paddington Station.  It’s a great place to have a beer and soak in some London pub atmosphere.  On their menu they actually do a good job including a number of vegetarian options and even some vegan ones as well.  Their breakfast menu has free-range eggs all over it.  So I thought I would try out their ‘Veggie Full English’ since I was craving a fried egg.

The Veggie Full English at Sawyers Arms, Paddington, London

Unfortunately they didn’t have the plant-based sausage but I was OK with that as they can be hot or miss I really wanted the eggs and the rest, can’t beat the English fried hash browns!  The dish was tasty and couldn’t beat the price of £6.95, but I did leave thinking it was missing something and made me think were there better options in London.  I started to do some research for places in London that offered a vegetarian option with free range eggs – this would be the true representation of a Selective Flexitarian English Breakfast. There are literally thousands of places offering vegetarian breakfast, less that also have free-range eggs and I looked for places that had interesting ingredients, something a little different than the standard.

The Table Cafe (Southwark)

The Green Goddess: Avocado, veggie beans, spinach, roast tomatoes, herby mushrooms &

sweet potato wheels with grilled sourdough ; can also add organic eggs. The avocado and sweet potato wheels sound interesting.

Mildreds – Kings Cross

Big Brunch: scrambled Clarence Court Eggs or tofu, vegan sausage, slow roasted tomato, oak smoked house beans, roasted tarragon mushroom, toasted sourdough

Only served on the weekends. What attracted me were the Clarence Court eggs, these eggs are free-range and heritage breed, their website has a lot of information. The tomato, beans and mushroom versions are an interesting spin on the standard offerings.

The Gate Restaurants (Marylebone, Islington, Hammersmith)

Full English: mushroom & bean sausage, hash brown, smoked tofu bacon, homemade baked beans, wild mushrooms, roasted tomato, Sourdough toast, fried eggs

Menu states that all their eggs are free-range and organic. What attracted me was the smoked tofu bacon and mushroom and bean sausage.

Polo Bar (City)

Vegetarian breakfast:  Bubble&Squeak, 2x free range eggs, roast tomato, roasted mushrooms, hash browns, baked beans, bloomer toast

One of the biggest attractions here is that they serve breakfast 24hrs a day! Perfect after a long session at the pubs or clubs.  Also of note is that they state that their bacon and meats are all grass-fed (except pigs don’t eat grass) and Red Tractor assured, this is a standard that all produce must originate from the UK and be traceable, all animals must of treated humanely and free of hormones and antibiotics.  There is a lot more information on their website.

Apres Food Co. (Barbican)

Vegetarian Breakfast: Aprés hash, poached eggs, thyme roasted field mushroom, slow roasted tomatoes, avocado, wilted spinach, watercress, a toasted slice of our homemade bread, with homemade ketchup or brown sauce

Almost all meat and dairy on their menu is free range and organic sourced from small English farms, the eggs come from Cornish St Ewe. The Apres hash is made from sweet potato, caramelized onions and spinach.

Now I realize that not everyone that reads this blog lives in London or may get the chance to go to London.  But what I think we can get from this post are some ideas on how to make an imaginative Selective Flexitarian English Breakfast of your own as a special treat.  I most certainly will be trying some of these options out myself!

Why become a Selective Flexitarian?

Since I started this journey of eating meat from responsible sources (pasture raised, grass fed, free range, heritage breed, all natural, cage free, no hormones, etc) there are some economic and logistical consequences that arise. Firstly it is quite expensive to buy responsibly raised meat, either from the supermarket or a farm. Meat from a factory farm is less expensive since they grow their animals faster using hormones and non-natural diets. Also by cramming these animals into confined spaces they get more return per square foot. These factors and many more result in factory farms being able to produce relatively inexpensive meat so people can afford to eat meat every day if they want. And most people want to eat meat every day, I was one of them for most of my life. Raising animals on pasture or truly free range is labor intensive and more expensive just like organic vegetables are more expensive than non-organic. If you make the decision to only eat responsibly raised meat then you need to make a choice. Spend more money on meat or eat less meat. Seems obvious right?

If all factory farms were banned today the smaller farms that raise animals the right way could not produce enough meat for everyone. Meat prices would go up and would become a luxury item just like it was 60 years ago before factory farms really took hold of the farming industry.  So there are some options here for the consumer that believes that factory farming is wrong.  The most obvious one is to become vegan.  There has been a large conversion of people to veganism in the last 10 years and the realization of the practices that occur at factory farms has contributed greatly to this shift.  Being a vegan in 2020 is still a lot of work and a big commitment.  The other option for me is to become what I call a “Selective Flexitarian”.  Flexitarian is an actual word in the dictionary (adopted in 2012, so not sure why the spellcheck keeps saying it is a spelling mistake) and is defined as : “one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish”.  If you google flexitarian a lot of articles will come up and it is closely tied to the Reductarian movement which is aimed at reducing the amount of meat in people’s diets due to concerns with animal welfare and the environment.  A lot of vegans may say that eating some meat is cheating, I kind of agree, and I don’t think I am ready to give up meat completely.  Also, for me if the meat is not raised responsibly then it is really cheating, hence the term ‘Selective Flexitarian’, if one is to eat meat then it should be selective from a responsible source.

So now I want to be a ‘Selective Flexitarian’ what does that mean?  For me it means finding responsible sources of meat which is eaten on occasion, while the rest of the food I eat should come from vegetable or plant-based sources.  The majority of my blog to date has focused on the responsible meat part of the journey; looking for farms, food brands and restaurants that meet the criteria.  There has been a steady shift to find more plant-based, vegan or vegetarian meals in my week, going forward I will be writing more about the second part of my conversion!