Plants by Deliciously Ella, Mayfair, London

​The vegan restaurant, Plants, is the latest offering from Deliciously Ella, and first impressions of this restaurant are glorious.
 
It’s set in the enclave of Mayfair Edwardian flats south of Oxford Street. The restaurant is in an old dairy building, and painted tiles advertising “United Dairy” still mark the walls.  Outside there are green and white awnings and the prospect of al fresco dining, although not much about this British summer would tempt us outside. The interior is slightly chintzy and doesn’t quite match the old dairy vibe, but it’s charming, bright and breezy with tables thoughtfully laid out in a small space. 
​The idea of this restaurant is that they work out what seasonable vegetables they have in the morning and then create 12 tailored dishes. On our day, there were potatoes with vegan aioli, steamed broccoli with peanut sauce, a mushroom risotto, kimchi tempura vegetables, and steamed aubergine on black rice. Regular side orders include cashew nut butter and sourdough bread. The food was delicious but we all remarked on how salty it was. Perhaps we eat a lot less salt now, or the chef just has an unusually high tolerance for salt. The salt, we worked out, was in the sauces: the aioli and the peanut sauce. The risotto and the aubergine were less salty, and definitely the favourite dishes. 
For wine, we chose a sumptuous French malbec which was £30/bottle. For Mayfair, that was definitely the bargain of the night. Smooth, earthy. With that slight ribena edge. There was, surprisingly, nothing on the label to indicate that the wine was vegan. We simply assumed that this was because they’d procured the wine directly from the supplier, and that they would obviously have checked for isinglass or egg white in the filtration process. 
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​For puddings we were tempted to order three, although at £13 a pop this was probably the most expensive part of the night. We opted for the elderberry crème brulee cheesecake and the strawberry millefeuille. Well, huge points for tackling the vegan dessert problem where it’s so hard to replicate the creaminess and gooiness of dairy, or the flakiness of butter pastry. Judging by the speed of demolition, the strawberry millefeuille was the favourite. A flaky, but crunchy, millefeuille layer with a coconut and strawberry cream. Sweet. Moreish. 
​The cheesecake was perhaps a little too un-cheesey for our liking. It had a firmness that suggested a semi-hard cheese like a young Manchego and without the softness or creaminess it was slightly bland. Almost, dare we say it, under-sweetened. Too much salt for the main courses and too little sugar for the pudding. We wondered if it was our palette, but the waitress hinted that others had remarked on the saltiness of the cuisine. It’s something to watch.
​We will though definitely be back. It’s a still great experience for any plant-based eater. The allure of 12 new dishes every day or a very drinkable red, the chintzy airy interior even, and the plum location in Mayfair. Oh, and the price. £50/head which for effectively a three-course meal (although it was a sharing plate set-up) with wine and coffee in the heart of Mayfair is, in the current London restaurant climate, what one must call a relative bargain.