The Lansdowne in Leicester

A few weeks back I wrote about the new vegan and vegetarian menu at The Lansdowne in Leicester, and was recently invited to come in and try it for myself.

Andrew and I arrived on a Saturday afternoon and the place had a nice buzz, but wasn’t overly loud or crowded. I think this can be attributed to the wide space of the dining areas – they don’t cram the tables in so you feel like you have some privacy. It also has a bit more of an upmarket feel than other Orange Tree pubs. The only downside was it felt a bit too dark for the middle of the day.

The vegan menu at The Lansdowne has even more choices than I remembered reading about, but it didn’t take long for us to identify the dishes we wanted to try. To start, we decided to share the vegetable tart and an order of polenta fries. The tart was filled with a mix of flavorful roasted courgettes and red peppers, served in a pastry case with some sweet red pepper sauce and a colorful side salad. The dish had great flavors, although I did feel the red pepper sauce was a bit too sweet for me (I prefer savory sauces with my meals). The pastry was also not as crispy/flaky as I would have liked – but I imagine this is due to it being made with olive oil rather than butter. We had absolutely no complaints about the polenta fries – they were warm and crispy on the outside and seasoned perfectly.

For my main I decided on the sweet potato curry served with cauliflower rice and an onion salad. The korma was incredibly flavorsome, with thick, chunky vegetables cooked in a lovely coconut korma sauce and topped with flaked almonds. The addition of the sharp onions and fluffy cauliflower rice rounded out the flavors perfectly. It was Andrew’s favorite dish of the meal, and possibly of any vegan main he’s had at a restaurant (and we’ve had some good ones!).

For Andrew’s main he ordered the wild mushroom ravioli which was served on a bed of roasted veggies drizzled in a pesto dressing. For me, this meal was the show stopper. The large ravioli was cooked to perfection, and the mushroom filling was bursting with flavors.  Andrew’s only complaint about this dish was that it was slightly heavy on the oil – not that I noticed.

After two courses we were pretty stuffed and not inclined to order dessert. However, after hearing the vegan options we couldn’t resist. Andrew ordered the lemon sorbet with strawberry compote and ate the bowl clean. I had a bite and found the strawberry compote far too sweet for me, but that’s just my tastes. For my dessert I had the strawberry samosas which were delicious. The tart strawberries were encased in a flaky, warm phyllo pastry and served with a passion fruit dressing that gave it just the right amount of sweetness. The samosas were really yummy, but far too big for me to finish unfortunately.

All in all, we were quite impressed with the vegan options at The Lansdowne and would gladly go back and recommend it to fellow Leicester veggies.

You can visit The Lansdowne website here.

 

* We were invited by The Lansdowne to try the new menu and given a complimentary meal, but the views are my own.