08 March 2010

Zilli Green, Soho London opened its doors in February 2010.  It didn’t take THV long to get in touch and offer our food review services.  Only in the name of research you know.  The restaurant PR man invited us for a meal – 6.30pm 8th March please kind sir.

We were greeted and seated upstairs by very friendly restaurant manager who preoceded to get the head chef Enzo who had a chat with us as well as other diners.  Enzo di Marino has been a chef for 20 years, he became a vegan 12 years.  He has worked at Mildreds, the Gate, Manna, Inspiral Lounge (where he still works as an exceutive chef) and now Zilli Green.

He is very passionate about his work and being a vegan – our kinda fella, so we invited him to write a guest blog for THV so watch this space.  When I asked what we should order Enzo offered to make us a selection of 3 starters, 3 mains and 3 desserts.  We nodded our heads furiously in acceptance.

While the head chef returned to the kitchen to cook up a tasty treat or three we supped on the zillicious – a vodka based organic cocktail with apple juice, elderflower, rasberry puree & red current.  Lovely and there were plenty of cocktails to choose from.  All Zilli Green wines are organic and the vegan ones are marked with a (v).  There are 3 red, 1 rose, 6 white and 2 champagne vegan choices.

Then the starters ceremoniously arrived; brodetto di legumi (barley, spelt, lentil & yellow split bean stew), quinoa & wild mushroom mediterranean sushi roll, artichoke chips with harissa & (the 4th one!) purple sprouting broccoli tempura.  Where are we going to put it all?

We liked them all very much.  My favourite was the purple sprouting broccoli & Mits favoured the sushi.  Time to stop eating now as there are 3 main courses and some desserts to go……

Tagliatelle, porcini mushrooms & white truffle oil (vo) (mits favourite), black bean chilli with crispy tortillas & vegan creme fraiche (vo) (my favourite) & marinated seared tofu steak served with Asian salad with cashew nuts.

And there was still more food, talk about save the best until last.  Dessert included tiramisu cake (my favourite), carob cake (Mits favourite) and lemon tofu cheese cake.  As a general rule I am not a tofu pudding fan but tonight that changed after this exceptional tofu cheese cake - it was darn good.

Zilli Green gets a THV thumbs up.  I was expecting only Italian food and was pleasantly suprised by the variety of flavours on offer and the quality of the vegan choices – you won’t feel like the poor relative when you eat here.  There is a Japanese theme running through the menu which lapse nicely with the Italian influence.  We will be back Zilli Green, make mine a zillicious!

Tags: vegan chef, vegetarian restaurant, Zilli Green