MILDREDS

Recently I have tried to eat less meat and more vegetarian when eating out or cooking at home. Halloumi, paneer, cereals & quorn substitutes are the new ingredients in my cupboard and fridge. With good vegetables and sauces I realised that meat free dishes can be as good and tasty as meat dishes.

To embrace my new found interest in veggie food, I went out for dinner at Mildred's with two friends. Opened since 1988, Mildred's serves only vegetarian food. It was my first time at Mildred's, while my vegetarian friend is a regular there. 

We arrived at 7pm and the restaurant was already packed, we were asked to wait 45 minutes to get a table at the bar as their rule is 'no reservations'. After 20 minutes and a passion fruit cocktail only we managed to get a table on the ground floor. 

I was impressed the menu had so many options, and of course all 100% veggie.

My friend and I shared two starters, the first one was pan fried halloumi, the cheese was soft and very tasty; usually this cheese doesn't have a strong taste but this time the balsamic glaze added a very nice sweet touch to the dish.

Pan fried halloumi, cherry tomato and wilted spinach with balsamic glaze.

The second starter was a mexican platter, they recommend this dish for 2 person. Guacamole was ok, nothing special but it was good. My favourtie dish from the platter was brie and jalapeno quesadilla with pico de gallo. The brie was melted in the quesadilla and jalapeno gives a little bit of spice to the dish. Spicy black turtle beans were fine but not my cup of tea.

Mexican platter, spicy black turtle beans, chipotle sour cream, guacamole, corn chips, mango, brie and jalapeno quesadilla with pico de gallo.

My friend went for the mixed mushroom; porcini and ale pie, it smells very nice when the dish arrived, mushroom were slowly cooked in a red wine sauce I think. It was really nice. I tried also one fry and the mushy peas - they were ok, nothing special. I usually prefer skinny fries. 

Mixed mushroom, porcini and ale pie with mushy peas and fries or mash

On that night, I went for one of their special pasta of the day. It was delicious. Butternut squash is one of my favourite Autumn vegetables and mixed with goat's cheese...this dish just sounded like heaven to me. The perfect comfort veggie food. The cream with basil was perfect to link all the ingredients from the dish together. 

Fresh tagliatelle with creamy basil and goat's cheese sauce with butternut squash and sweet potato

My other friend went for the other pasta dish which is on the current menu everyday, when it arrived I was a bit jealous as it looked good too. The tortellini was very nice and a little bit sweet. The best part of this dish was sauce with mushroom and truffle oil, so creamy and tasty.

Fresh tortellini filled with pumpkin and ricotta, with chestnut mushroom, white wine cream sauce, drizzled with truffle oil

Overall I really liked my dinner at Mildred's I didn't miss meat at all. All options sounded great, It took a bit of time to choose what we wanted qnd it was a really good value. We were all too full to get a dessert. We saw some cake on the table next to us that looked delicious, maybe next time I won't eat too much from the starter to leave some place for dessert.
Service was good, not special but they were at least attentive to details which is a good thing considering they were extremely busy (apparently it is like that every day).
Since my visit I discovered that they also do take away, I think I might get my Meat free monday on more often - and of course preorder to avoid the wait.

7/10.

Mildreds

45 lexington street

London W1F 9AN