Food for Thought

This place is a little find, snuggling in between the jewellery and clothes shops that fill up Neal Street. If you shop in and around Seven Dials on a regular basis, the chances are that you may already know about Food for Thought, but if you don’t, it’s a wonderful place to add to your memory bank when you stomach starts growling.

Before you set foot in this vegetarian restaurant, you’ll probably have to tackle some kind of queue, but we’re not talking M25 tailbacks here – more a reassuring sign that the place has a good reputation. It was raining on the day that we visited and we breathed a sigh of relief to get inside this cosy cavern of a place.

The first thing you notice once you’ve got through the throng of hungry people queuing, is the huge slabs of cake sitting, or let’s be honest, weighing down the counter. Everything looked very fresh and inviting and the banana and strawberry scrunch looked seriously good.

With lunchtime reminding us to look away from the cake until we’d contemplated a main meal, we chose our dishes of Russian stew and spinach lasagne. They don’t scrimp on portion sizes here, so bear that in mind before you order everything you see. Space is limited at Food for Thought, but its friendly feel means that rubbing the occasional elbow with other diners, isn’t an issue. Our main dishes came accompanied by huge helpings of salad and would have made for a hearty dinner just as well.

The menu at Food for Thought is purely vegetarian but meat lovers don’t need to despair as there are plenty of hearty options to chose from. For veggies and vegans, well you’re probably in heaven in this place. The menu is also helpfully coded so you can decipher the veggie options from the vegan ones, and keep an eye out for nutty and wheat free dishes too.

Both of our main dishes were lovely, and very comforting with the rain hammering the pavements outside. It was the banana and strawberry scrunch that stole the show though. It had called to us at the beginning of our order, so it only seemed fitting to let it round off the end of our meal. Made from museli (yes, I know – museli) and granola, it was gorgeously topped with lashings of cream and huge chunks of strawberry and banana. Every mouthful was proper halo heaven. It was difficult to move afterwards, it has to be said, but a return journey is on the cards the next time my hunt for shoes takes me to Seven Dials.

Food for Thought: 31 Neal Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9PR. (Please note that Food for Thought doesn’t accept credit or debit cards).

Reviewer: Helenka Bednar