Cauliflower Cauliflower

Crispy cauliflower florets with tangy lemon aioli and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.

The Refuge By Volta

The Refuge By Volta

Oxford Road, Manchester I-M60 7HA, United Kingdom

British • European • Vegetarian • Contemporary


"Excellent! We spent around four hours here on a Tuesday afternoon sampling their food, savouring their coffee and scabbing their free wifi! I 'll start with the basics. The Refuge is conveniently located on Oxford Street just a two minute walk from the train station. The casual seating area is huge with plenty of places for different sized groups to sit, there 's even an Apprentice Style boardroom table. The vibe is very relaxed but when I entered I noticed a lot of business people (or people clearly working). The decor is fantastic, as mentioned its a huge open space but the dark wooden finish makes it feel close and comfortable. The lunch menu isn 't huge but they clearly want to keep things simple and do them right. I had the beef burger accompanied by skinny fries and it was delicious. Just the right consistency so you could pick it up without it falling apart. It was generously topped with salad and the 'posh big mac ' sauce finished it off nicely. If you want to eat you 'll have to head through to the dining area as they don 't serve food in the lounge beware this was very busy, even on a Tuesday, so you may need to book in advance. After lunch we headed back to the lounge area and had a coffees while we chatted. The coffee was great, I had a flat white which was just off on the good side of bitter. We also ordered snacks later in the day the Almonds cooked in bacon fat are a must try that might sound gross to some people but just wait until the bacon flavour hits your taste buds! To access the free wifi you 'll need to sign up wth your email address but then it 's all yours. I haven 't even received a spammy email a week later. It 's really hard to fault The Refuge the staff were attentive without being too in your face, which I suppose is important when people are using their premises for business meets! All in all a really great experience and a lovely place to spend the afternoon working."

Farmacy

Farmacy

74 Westbourne Grove, London, W25SH, United Kingdom

Juice • Desserts • Vegetarian • Mediterranean


"This place was a big let down i think all the five star reviews are from people who don't know how good vegan food tastes like. Also they seem not to know how to keep things stocked, over the course of the evening i've heard no less than five times they ran out of one thing or another. Even the beer i asked about, i was told they haven't had that in months?? This restaurant is what happens when trendiness is more important than food quality not to mention the small portions my partner and I had to order three mains and a starter and we still ended up leaving not full. Our first mains we shared, it was a mexican dish and they included FOUR WHOLE tortilla chips for the entire bowl. four... we went through all four in a minute or two and still had a bit left in the bowl, so we asked if we could perhaps get some more, but the waitress proceeded to lose the sense of urgency and by the time she had finished taking someone else's order, we had already finished the plate. one of the cocktails had a very peculiar aftertaste, the desert wasn't all that, tasted like a sponge (was supposed to be cheesecake) and the hot chocolate was rubbish too (seriously how can you screw that up? oh right, vegan cream).. this is what happens when you try to imitate non vegan dishes as vegan things, just why? and then we ended up getting the bill and it was a bit of a shock how much was spent for how little we received. someone's really trying to cashing in on the vegan crazy really just one disappointment after another, i won't consider coming back to this place nor recommending it to anyone else."