The Porridge Cafe founder opens almost-vegan east London restaurant

The founder of now-closed Shoreditch restaurant The Porridge Café has opened a plant-based restaurant in London Fields.

Located in the courtyard of Found London on Westgate Street, The Field is the brainchild of Nik Williamson, who also founded Bow Street Kitchen, and his head chef Ryan Petty.

The restaurant opened earlier this month, offering a “plant based menu with a few animal product add ons” with an ethos that ensures “no one is left out”.

Menu items at lunch service include snacks of Vietnamese spring rolls; crudites and flatbreads with hummus and cashew nut cheese; and buffalo cauliflower with hot sauce.

Larger dishes are available, such as a red rice and grilled romaine lettuce salad; pappardelle puttanesca; and a falafel salad bowl. Customers can choose to add a chicken thigh or a ‘happy egg’ to any of the menu items.

In the evenings there is a choice of a three-course menu for £26 or a five-course menu for £32.

Dishes include white asparagus with courgette, barley and almonds; agnolotti with cavalo nero, pine nuts and cocoa butter; seaweed with mushroom, sea purslane, celeriac and olive with the option of adding hake; roast potato with kale, Romanesco, roasted vegetable and cumin jus with the option of adding roasted chicken; and sweetcorn custard with a lion’s mane tart.

Williamson attracted attention in 2015 when he opened The Porridge Café in Shoreditch with co-founder Elly Harrington.

The now-closed café was compared to The Cereal Killers cereal café for its trendy east London location and one-dish simplicity.

The Field joins a spate of new openings in the area including Gizzi Erskine’s Mare Street Market; and Bright, the new venture from the team behind P. Franco.