Restaurant: Vanilla Black, London EC4

For our critic, vegetarian food was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. But not any more
Restaurant: Vanilla Black
The deconstructed carrot cake would have Derrida jumping for joy. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

There is not a mung bean in sight. Ask for mushroom risotto and you might be expelled. This is nouvelle veggie cuisine. Yes, madam, that means "Poached Duck Egg and Ribblesdale Pudding" or "Baked Mushroom Duxelle with White Wine and Tarragon". Once you've got past the ordering, life becomes rather enjoyable.

  1. Vanilla Black
  2. 17-18 Tooks Court,
  3. London
  4. EC4A 1LB
  5. 020-7242 2622
  1. Rating: 8/10.
    Lunch, Mon-Fri, noon-2.30pm; dinner, ­Mon-Sat, 6-10pm. Three courses with drinks and service, £40-£45 a head.

Vanilla Black is the perfect name for the place – mellow, muted, sophisticated. The restaurant started in York and moved to east London a couple of years ago. It is in Tooks Court, where the legal eagles hang out, a short walk from the Royal Courts of Justice. The walls are white and grey, the waiters and menus dressed in black, the lights dimmed. Staff are informative and attentive, and know just when to hang back. Vanilla Black is not likely to become your local; it's an upmarket treat.

Veggie food, upmarket treat? Oxymoron, I know. For seven tragic years I didn't eat meat. I knew I had to go back on the red stuff after I found myself in an alleyway close to the Guardian secretly devouring a Big Mac. When a colleague passed and asked what I was doing, I spat the whole lot at him in shock. These days, I'm a fully rehabilitated carnivore. My ideal dessert is black pudding.

So the thought of a night on the town chomping on rice and roots doesn't hold much appeal. Which makes Vanilla Black all the more remarkable. The food is creative, beautifully presented and exciting.

This is a restaurant of contrasts – the name, the decor and the food. A lot of thought has gone into every touch. So the baps are floured save for a diamond in the middle, and four knobs of butter arrive on a black platter – two sea-salted, two black-peppered. Lovely symmetry.

For starters, I have red wine-braised puy lentil dahl. It looks fabulous, like a Native American in full headdress (the dahl is the face, potato mousseline the feathers). Chef/patron Andrew Dargue really understands ingredients and unlikely combinations. Each flavour works to heighten the other – the creamy potato, the lightly curried dahl and the pungent galangal. Yum. My lady Diane opts for Olive Oil Fried Yukon Gold Potato Cakes that are so light they could float; salty capers provide a counter tang.

For main course, I order that poached duck egg, etc. Whereas so much veggie food slops everything into a stew and hopes for the best, here each item is splendidly isolated – so you could have the egg, cheesy pudding and hickory-smoked potato croquette one after the other. But as a whole it tastes even better. What's more, it's just like gammon, egg and chips. Heston Blumenthal, eat your fleshy heart out. Talking of which, if you've a dodgy ticker or cholesterol issues, this is not the place for you: two courses in, I feel as if I'm being creamed to death. (Not the worst way to go.) Diane goes for a plainer tomato dish. The tomatoes, poached and skinned, sit regally on their tart. As for its cucumber accompaniment, it's spiral-peeled so long and thin you can wrap it round a fork like spaghetti. Great fun.

On the minus side, Vanilla Black is a little too urbane – more reading room than restaurant. And the menu is a little too rigidly set – half a dozen starters, mains and desserts. A few less clever-clogs options would be nice. Rather than scoff at the veggie cliché, why not offer the world's best risotto? Vanilla Black is already Michelin Guide-recommended, and a liberal sprinkling of black truffles would surely get them a first star.

But these are minor quibbles. Diane's deconstructed carrot cake would have Derrida jumping for joy. It's an exercise in DIY genius – cinnamon cake with carrot ice-cream and carrot halva. Put it all together, et voilà, carrot cake. As for my Valrhona dark chocolate and orange truffle, it looks like a seesaw (a crispy chocolate leaf balanced on one side, a sponge cushion on the other) and tastes like heaven.

By the time we leave, I'm ready for the acute cardiac unit, but it's worth it. If they can do this with milk and veg, just think what it'd be like if they had fish and meat to play with.

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