I’m currently gearing up for a huge month ahead on this blog (stay tuned for an announcement on the next post), so for the next two weeks I’m scaling things back and ticking some smaller things off my list.

One of my first ever posts featured me trying scary menu items as I travelled around Tassie. I tried a fairly wide variety, but upon reflection a few months later, I realised that it didn’t even cross my mind to order tea (something I’d never had before). It recently hit me that I’d missed another major category: vegan food.

My mental image of vegan food is not an overly positive one. It’s not that I don’t like vegetables, or that I must eat meat with every meal, but when I think of vegan food, I picture imitation products (i.e., fake meat). It sounds pretentious, but I hateeee ‘fake’ foods. Anything ultra-processed (like string cheese), frozen when it should be fresh (frozen pizza), or imperfectly flavoured to taste like the real thing (banana lollies) are not for me. Plant-based meat imitations are a whole new level of nope.

As a foodie in one of the world’s premier dining cities, however, it seems a bit ridiculous that I’ve shunned an entire sub-cuisine, one that’s only growing year on year. Perhaps it won’t be anywhere near as bad as I imagine.

That’s why this week I: Ate at a vegan restaurant.

Melbourne is home to an overwhelming number of top-tier dining establishments, but I couldn’t tell you which ones serve good plant-based fare. So, I asked my resident vegan friend from work, Liv, for some suggestions. She was kind enough to provide a list of her favourite spots, with a full rundown of each. I whittled it down to entirely vegan options (as opposed to regular restaurants that simply had great vegan options), and settled on Smith + Daughters in Fitzroy. I managed to convince my sister and her boyfriend to join me, and they were… excited? Perhaps intrigued is a more accurate description.

Smith + Daughters is tucked down a backroad, away from the hustle and bustle of Smith Street. I secretly wondered if that was to prevent unknowing meat-eaters and veganism-detractors from entering accidentally, only to leave in a huff after one glance at the menu. The street was pitch dark with hardly any cars around – people went out of their way to come here.

We walked through the large glass doors of the admittedly striking red brick building into a warm and inviting atmosphere. We were shown to our table and seated. The first thing we noticed as our waitress fetched us some menus and water was the smell, and unfortunately, not a good one. It wasn’t offensively bad, but it hung in the air uneasily, refusing to go away even after we’d been there for some time. I’d come in with an open mind, and I was upset that I’d so quickly been given a reason to be sceptical.

The menu was aimed at sharing, so we ordered a mix of smaller and larger plates. I’m a sucker for a good cocktail, so of course I had to get one of those too. I pored over their seven signature options, then saw at the bottom in cheeky red text: ‘Don’t be shy, ask us for a classic’. I’ve been making a lot of cocktails at home recently, and have been getting really into sours. I love the taste, but what really makes it for me is the silky texture created by the egg white. I was gearing up to ask for one, and at the last second realised it wasn’t vegan – I didn’t stop to consider whether a drink would contain animal products. I panicked, as I’d already made eye contact with the waitress. I took one last hurried glance at the menu while she approached, and noticed they had a rhubarb sour – egg-white-free of course, but it still sounded interesting enough to try.

As the three of us waited for our order to come, we glanced around, and I noticed the coat rack. The lone item hanging on it was a leather jacket with a fur collar. For a vegan restaurant, I found that hilarious. As my gaze shifted down the rack, I noticed the bottom was modelled like a bird that had been impaled on a stick – a reminder, I supposed, of why this restaurant existed.

Our dishes came out quickly. I would broadly group them into two categories: ‘naturally vegan’ and ‘imitation meals’. We started with the former. First came the smoked potatoes with grapefruit mayo. I love an unconventional food pairing (as much as I tease my friend Elise for hers), so this was an obvious win for me. The potatoes were beautifully crunchy, and I’m only realising now that it wasn’t real mayo; it was so good I hadn’t noticed. 8/10.

Next up we had a brussels sprout coleslaw. I’m not usually a fan of slaw (nor do I really like the word ‘slaw’ actually), but this was probably the best I’ve ever had. So fresh, tangy, and for a vegan option, surprisingly creamy. 8/10.

Our first main meal was beans and rice with fried plantain. I know it sounds like something they’d eat on day 29 of Survivor, but the name undersold how sophisticated and downright delicious it was. It was spicy, saucy, and the plantain – something I’ve wanted to try for years – was crunchy and tasted basically like a savoury banana chip. The best meal of the night, hands down. 10/10.

We were off to a great start, but unfortunately, the good vibes ended there. Next came our two imitation meals: smoked BBQ brisket and mac & cheese. I hate being negative but here’s the truth. The brisket was rubbery, chewy, and tasteless. If this is the best that a high-end vegan restaurant could do, I am terrified to imagine what an Impossible Whopper from Hungry Jacks must be like. 2/10.

To me, ‘Easy Mac’ is about as terrifying of a food product as it gets – it’s cheese, why is it a powder? – and I think it’s ruined the whole concept of mac and cheese for me. Just hearing the name grosses me out. As I ate it, I pondered what was really in each of the three ‘cheeses’ they claimed were in it. I would have given it a 2/10, but I bumped it up to account for my personal biases. 4/10.

I didn’t do dessert because honestly, they all just sounded really delicious, and I knew none of them would really challenge me in any way; I’ve eaten plenty of vegan desserts before and for some reason they don’t gross me out at all.

Instead, we headed down the road to Fluffy Torpedo, a beloved ice cream shop famous for it’s insane flavours. I tried ‘buttered baguette’, ‘milk chocolate and salt and vinegar chips’, ‘truffle, white chocolate, pretzel’, ‘honey and soy sauce’, and ‘vanilla coke and whipped cream’. I hadn’t gone there for any particularly poetic reason (at least not consciously), but I realised while there that what I love so much about it is exactly the opposite of what I didn’t enjoy about my dinner: the flavours are so authentic. When the flavour is called ‘buttered baguette’, it literally has buttered bread in it. Same goes for every flavour. You can see the packet of salt and vinegar chips and the bottles of vanilla coke on the shelves behind the counter. As much as I despise fake food, I adore the real thing.

The evening went about as I’d expected. I was pleasantly surprised by the naturally vegan meals, and I’d certainly go and eat at vegetarian restaurants in the future. However, the imitation meals just were not my thing. That’s probably not a surprise, though. Really, they’re aimed at people who haven’t eaten the real thing in a long time, not people who are comparing it to the brisket they ate last Sunday. I’m not a convert, but I’ve had a peak into a world I previously had very little knowledge of, and that’s always pretty cool.