The term “vegan pub”, which describes the Spread Eagle in Hackney, east London, is instinctively a funny one. Merely sprinkle “vegan pub” into any sentence, and it conjures up mental images of wan-faced fun-phobes sipping half-pints of unfiltered oatmeal stout in a room ripe with high-fibre flatulence. The vegan pub’s jukebox would offer one choice: an extended, 14-minute remix of Meat Is Murder by The Smiths. “This beautiful creature must die!” Mozza screams, incessantly, as drinkers force down vegan pork scratchings made from zero-waste parsnip scrapings.
Well, the Spread Eagle is none of these things. It is, in fact, a cheerful, gregarious boozer in London’s, ahem, Vegan Quarter, which stretches from Clapton to Hackney Wick, and it serves up plentiful, Mexican-influenced food by streetfood stars Club Mexicana, as well as animal-friendly wines and, typically, 16 different vegan beers such as Camden Hells, Five Points Pale Ale, Beavertown Gamma Ray and others that don’t use “finings” such as isinglass (made from the swim bladders of fish).
Not that the Spread Eagle ever cites any of the choices it has made, or its reasonings for living this way. There is a new genre of vegan hospitality that uses Jedi mind-trickery to appease friends and family of vegans with assertive shock normality. This is a family- and dog-friendly boozer, the room rocks with laughter, the service is smiley, and the loos are clean, even though they probably use that eco-friendly bleach that just moves muck around. The place is hewn in midnight blues and copper accents, and a large spread eagle is daubed prettily on one wall. As groups of diners come through the doors, you can see the weight lift from meat-eaters’ shoulders when they realise this is just a normal gastropub experience and not a two-hour, chia seed-filled, all-sensory drubbing on the woes of rennet, collagen and cochineal.
In fact, the Spread Eagle is so much fun, I don’t think Morrissey would drink here at all. He’d prefer Black Cat a mile up the road, which is a sparse, crypto-punk vegan cafe with a “no fur to be worn on the premises” policy and notes about laptop usage on every table. I could see him in there, eating a tofu scramble while on the phone firing another publicist.
I say the Spread Eagle’s food is “Mexican-influenced” because culturally, and despite having a thriving vegan scene of its own, Oaxacan cuisine is not generally linked with breading and deep-frying “cheeze” made from coconut oil. Or with jackfruit carnitas, either. Jackfruit, once roasted, shredded and mixed with liberal amounts of garlic, jalapeño, cumin and oregano, looks and tastes alarmingly like pulled pig flesh. At the Spread Eagle, it’s served with a vibrant red pico de gallo salsa and a strong, citrus-garlic hit of mojo de ajo garlic sauce. Likewise, do Mexicans eat fish-finger sandwiches with a vegan tartare? And, if so, where do they stand on the Spread Eagle’s “tofish” – an oddly realistic, breadcrumbed “cod” finger with a wafer-thin layer of inky nori underneath its crumb coating to replicate fish skin?
I love the mental gymnastics of modern vegan food, which seeks to give the vegan uptaker the things they did not imagine they’d miss: bleeding “meats”, fake bones in “chicken wings”, and fatty lumps in fake chorizo. Eating is much more complex than merely taste and appetite. It is about memories, a sense of belonging and of finding comfort in the recognisable, so at the Spread Eagle there is “sour cream” to go with the triple-fried potatoes and the popcorn chick’n salad comes with “mayo”.
On the pudding list, there’s Mexican deep-fried ice-cream with chilli chocolate. It’s arguable that if you’ve eaten the cheap, mass-produced, animal-derivative versions of ice-cream, fish fingers or any of the other foods I’ve mentioned, the vegan version may well taste better. It’s also arguable, by some vegans at least, that there’s no point in choosing this restrictive lifestyle and then flirting with notions such as “pork” tacos al pastor or “scallops” that are, in fact, pieces of mushroom. Why not just call them mushrooms?
But, importantly, no one at the Spread Eagle – neither the staff nor the clientele – seems in the mood for this argument. At a time when pubs are in turmoil, here is one gastropub concept that is bringing home the bacon. There isn’t any meat, and getting a booking is murder.
• The Spread Eagle 224 Homerton High Street, London E9, 020-8985 0400. Open Mon-Fri 4pm-11pm (2am Fri), Sat noon-2am, Sun noon-11pm. About £20 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 8/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Service 8/10
Grace’s week in other dishes
The tofu massaman at Rosa’s Thai. Full disclosure: some of my happiest times are spent dining solo at Westfield Stratford food court.
Chilli crab wonton bombs at Freak Scene, Scott Hallsworth’s new Soho joint.
