Combining Food and Activism: Unity Diner Review
- slingshotmagazine
- Oct 17, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 10, 2019
by Molly Long
Rating: ★★★★☆
Ask any London-based vegan and they’ll tell you: good junk food lies to the east. There are ample places elsewhere in the city to get Instagram-worthy plant-based eats, but it is east London that provides vegans with a healthy dose of the unhealthy. From the vegan doner kebabs of What the Pitta, to the fried chick’n of Temple of Seitan, the east pretty much has it covered.
In the last six months, there has been a new addition to the scene. Located in Hoxton, Unity Diner has all the trappings of a successful vegan restaurant. It is the brainchild of popular vegan YouTuber and animal rights activist Earthling Ed and as he himself claims, aims to help people “to become an active part of creating a world where compassion towards all non-human animals is the norm.”
The diner runs as a non-profit, donating its earnings to grassroots animal rights movement SURGE. Proceeds help support large-scale vegan advertising campaigns and outreach programmes across the country and are also funding the construction of the Surge Sanctuary - an ex-farm animal respite home set to open in late 2019. Between its practically-vegan-royalty owner, its location at the centre of the vegan junk food world and its non-profit mission, Unity talks a good game - but just how does the restaurant experience itself shape up?
The menu offers a lot of food that vegans have likely seen before. Tofish bites (tofu ‘fish’), ‘cheeze’ burgers and seitan ‘chickken’ are not new by any means, but that we’ve seen them before isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Admittedly, some of the food isn’t great. Like so many ambitious vegans before them, Unity’s attempt at a mac and cheese is unexciting, bordering on bland. But then again, most vegans have at least one story about a disappointing mac and cheese.
Aside from some disappointing pasta, the rest of the menu is largely a success. Diners can choose from a number of burgers, toasted sandwiches, salads and sharing platters. Most non-meat eaters will be well-versed in the mediocre veggie burgers of the world, but Unity’s managed to escape this fate. The clear winner is the ‘Moving Mountains Burger’; a juicy meat-free patty loaded with ‘cheeze,’ fried onions, grilled peppers and a sun-dried tomato pesto. For an extra £1, you can add into the mix some ‘bakon,’ - which comes highly recommended by this reviewer.
The star of the menu and most original item by far is the chickpea and seitan ‘steakk’. Beyond the odd spelling, Unity’s ‘steakk’ manages to ‘tickk’ all the boxes. It is served with wedges, garlic curly kale, cherry tomatoes and a red wine gravy and whilst it isn’t going to fool meat eaters any time soon, it remains a great example of the ingenuity and creativity that modern vegan food can give rise to. From 12 until four o’clock on weekdays it also makes an appearance as a toastie filling, along with mustard mayonnaise and roasted mushrooms - good news for any vegans still desperately searching for a decent sandwich.
The speed of the service is somewhat of a let down. The staff, whilst undeniably enthusiastic about the establishment, can’t wholly compensate for food taking 45 minutes from order to table. Hungry and out of conversation, customers are frequently left tapping tables, eyes eagerly watching the kitchen.
But there is little doubt that slow service will put customers off, especially when weighed against the restaurant’s charitable mission. Even for those uninterested in SURGE, the restaurant provides enjoyable plant-based food at a good price. Veganism is often chastised as being a lifestyle only really accessible for the middle and upper classes, and Unity seems to be gladly trying to overturn that. All in, vegans on a budget could easily get lunch for less than £7 and a two-course dinner for less than £15.
It is easy, sometimes, for us vegans to get behind a person, a product or a restaurant just because of its being vegan, with little consideration for anything else. Case in point: the vegans who still buy supermarket vegan cheese, insisting it is just a good as the real stuff. With its non-profit mission, Unity could have fallen into this trap, serving below average food to crowds of vegans blinded by love and a good cause. Fortunately, the restaurant largely has the flavours and dishes to back it up. Whilst service needs work, the entire Unity experience is good one.
Being surrounded by competition throughout Shoreditch and elsewhere in east London, Earthling Ed’s non-profit does well to set itself apart from the crowd. Being city-based, it is often hard for a lot of vegans to feel like they are actively fighting against the oppression of animals. For one reason or another, we can’t all be breaking into farms on rescue missions or sabotaging fox hunts. Unity Diner therefore provides a step beyond traditional dinner; combining great food with an accessible form of activism.
Unity Diner is located at 5 Hoxton Market in Shoreditch, N1 6HG. Food is served from 12 am until 10 pm on weekdays and 10 am until 10 pm on weekends. Dishes start from £4.95.
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