Plant Matter Kitchen

The Chick'n & Mushroom Pot Pie arrives the way the dish is supposed to: puff pastry domed over a gravy thick with smoked soy curls, mushrooms, peas, carrots, and mashed potato. Nothing on the plate came from an animal, and the kitchen makes no show of the fact. That is the move Plant Matter Kitchen runs on. A fully plant-based restaurant in London's Wortley Village, it takes the familiar shapes of comfort food — the pot pie, the grilled cheese, the plate of mac and cheese — and rebuilds them from vegetables, then sets them in front of a table that came for dinner rather than for a cause.

The mushroom work threads through the menu. A Maitake Mushroom Steak treats one dense cluster of fungus as a centre-plate entree, plated with garlic-whipped potatoes, garlicky broccolini, peppercorn gravy, and chimichurri. The Mushroom Flatbread layers a garlic base with roasted mushrooms, spinach, pickled onion, truffled blue cheese, and balsamic glaze, a plate that leans more wine bar than vegan café. Past the mushrooms the kitchen ranges wide — Jamaican Patties and Hot Honey Chick'n at the sharper, handheld end; Cajun Mac & Cheese, a Truffled Mushroom Blue Cheese Rigatoni, an Impossible Lasagna, and a Crispy Chick'n Banh Mi for the bigger appetites; a Falafel Bowl and a Gochujang Cauliflower Wrap for the lighter ones. The cheeses are cashew-based, the chick'n is made in-house, and the spread covers most of what a menu built on meat and dairy would carry.