First it was Jane Asher and her buns, then it was Linda McCartney’s veggie burgers, so it was probably inevitable that Heather Mills should set up a vegan café. What is it about Sir Paul McCartney and food?
Before setting off to try his ex-wife’s new venture in Hove, I write an aide-mémoire in my pad which I triple underline: “Avoid puerile jokes and don’t mention legs [Mills lost a limb when she was run over]. Try not to be totally horrible.” By this, I scribble: “Crazy idea: how about a really counter intuitive piece that’s vaguely positive about HM?” Blimey, I was setting myself a tough brief.
Mills has been accused of just about everything, bar shy diffidence. I interviewed her once and emerged feeling exhausted, inadequate and faintly ill. Superficially her conversation had meandered wildly, but you realised soon enough that it had actually stuck rigorously to one theme: how Heather was saving the world.
I heard how President Clinton was beseeching her to become a global ambassador, how political parties wanted her elevated to the peerage, and how as a young model she made weekly mercy missions to war zones to shower victims with money; and so on. In the way of media life, I was later interviewed about my interview for a television documentary. Its researchers investigated myriad claims she had made to me and, you will be staggered to learn, that one or two assertions were, well, tricky to corroborate.
But give Mills this: she doesn’t go away. Even Jeffrey Archer is now a little muted. For Mills, no vilification is too vile, no humiliation too humbling. If anything, demonisation seems to drive her. In a recent interview she was in typically robust form, insisting she was vegan long before she met the anti-meat crusading Beatle, and that her restaurant, VBites, was her present to the neighbours, not some weird “I’m better than Linda” thing. She also claims to have undertaken scientific research into veganism, unearthing new forms of vegan food. Students of Mills noted gratefully that divorce has done nothing to deflate her.
VBites is a hop from her home and very Brighton, even if it is in Hove. There are a few vegetarian restaurants down here, notably Terre à Terre. It wouldn’t work in Blackpool, but a vegan restaurant should flourish in Islington-on-Sea.
Mills has noted, while heroically keeping a lid on her grief, how journalists who have crossed her tend to die, or at the very least contract cancer. So, after our earlier run-in, I enter VBites a little gingerly, particularly after hearing that customers wear T-shirts with slogans such as “Fit Bitch Boot Camp”. Mills is probably off in her lab, but she leaves us with plenty of pretty waiters (male and female), as well as three cooks in an open-plan kitchen.
She has taken over the site of a traditional café in the middle of a playground, which lends VBites a friendly, relaxed feel. Inside there is a crèche by a revolving bar reminiscent of a sushi restaurant, but this one is serving cakes. And no, they are not Jane Asher’s.
More on the menu appeals than appals. We start with a meze platter, allowing us to select a variety of salads, well constructed with decent dressings. And we are just fighting over the curries (my wife and I both want Indian, not Thai) when our Nordic waiter announces all main courses have run out, bar spaghetti bolognaise. So hey, it’s spag bol, or burgers – vegan burgers.
I’ve never understood why veganism apes the very thing it claims to despise. Lots of delicious Middle Eastern dishes are vegan, but there is no culinary cross-dressing in the Lebanon. Vegans getting down and dirty with a burger is the mild culinary equivalent of Graham Greene making love behind the altar of St Peter’s in Rome. I would say it’s about forbidden fruit, except fruit is one pleasure we’re allowed at VBites.
Still, I’m soon eating my grumbling words along with my burger. The fresh, wholegrain bap is excellent, as are the chunks of salad. The “burger” is full of tasty beans and the cheese isn’t bad. My only quibble is with the “rasher”, which is rather like eating solid air – not terrible, but not one of life’s great experiences. Overall, though, this is a prejudice-challenging and enjoyable dish. I swill it down with a glass of Fairtrade rosé, which is perhaps fairer on the peasants who squashed the grapes than on the palate that spits them out.
My wife is not enamoured of her “fish” burger, which contains a pair of what look like fish fingers, just not as flavoursome. We have been warned about the vegan ice cream, so finish with a couple of cakes and, despite the cow milk substitute, these are pretty good.
Mills makes all sorts of claims for veganism, from the grim (meat remains in your colon for life, apparently) to the cranky (thanks to diet, her daughter is the brightest in her class, she says tactfully). But I wonder what she’d make of the air quality on the drive home, which forces me to ask my wife to go easy on the roughage next time we visit. Glaringly, said wife claims there’s something up with the air con.
But there will be a next time. To my surprise, I rather liked VBites (note to self: does this sound sincere?). And at £33 for dinner for two, it doesn’t cost an arm and a… (you get the drift).
- VBites, Hove Lagoon, Kingsway, East Sussex (01273 933 757; www.vbites.com)
VEGANS IN THE VANGUARD
Alicia Silverstone, actress
Benjamin Zephaniah, poet
Chrissie Hynde, singer
Joaquin Phoenix, actor
Sally Eastall, Olympics marathon runner
Martin Shaw, actor