Meat feasts to go: Burger King tests all-vegan London branch

theguardian.com:

All fast food will eventually become vegan, a leading plant-based restaurateur has said, after Burger King made one of its flagship restaurants meat-free.

The restaurant in Leicester Square, London, has been offering only vegan food for a month to test its popularity. This includes a plant-based version of its Whopper burger, as well as a “chicken” katsu burgerand vegan nuggets.

James Lewis, who works in marketing and product development for the vegan restaurant 123V on Bond Street, said this was part of a growing trend.

Lewis, who with the French chef Alexis Gauthier runs two fully vegan restaurants in London, said: “What we were looking for was to appeal to everyone in a family, a group of friends, people who weren’t vegan to begin with. We call [the vegan burger] a gateway dish, something someone is easily familiar with.”

He hoped that meat-eating friends of vegans would visit the restaurant, try the burger and realise it was just as nice as a regular one – and perhaps make that swap more frequently in future.

Because much of the meat in fast-food dishes is processed, in a sauce or under a layer of condiments and cheese, vegan options have been relatively easy to substitute. When Greggs launched a vegan sausage roll in 2019, many commented that the meaty, herby mush contained within the crisp pastry was almost indistinguishable from the real thing. The chain has since made a vegan version of its popular sausage, bean and cheese melt.

“Fast food is 100% the best area to switch to vegan,” Lewis said, adding: “The chains are often sneered at by people but they are setting the trends here. Theres no point starting a vegan chain because once McDonald’s figure out how to make a good vegan burger, they will think: ‘What’s the