Restaurante La Veganesa — Restaurant in Cádiz

I was quite disappointed with this restaurant after looking forward to visit it for so long. The restaurant itself.is nice and they have achieved a modern cool and fresh feel on a very small budget. That's what I liked. First of all there were no photos on the menu...and those on the website were of items no longer on the menu. We ordered a salad, some patatas bravas y the fried seaweed. Well first of all the salad had a nice flavour with oranges nuts and dates. The oranges however were just chopped and none of the pitch was removed. Ithink that's the least they should do at a restaurant...it's ok if your friend does that but in a restaurant the orange should be parred correctly so you don't end up with mouthfuls of bitter pith!. Apart from that it was a nice salad.until.i saw the price ...12 euros!!! The salad was tiny...just enough for one as a side dish so why such an extortionate price? A nice recipe but not even well prepared....I was shocked at the price...especially considering most vegans are younger people with limited budgets! Ok...so onto the patatas bravas with setas. Not horrible but you can tell they had just bought a bad of frozen bravas from Mercadona and fried them. Would be nice to use real potatoes! And the sauces ..well if you don't like the overpowering taste of paprica you'd want to give that a miss. Finally we have the fried seaweed... We were actually shown a photo of that by the waiter ..and it looked like the leaves of seaweed fired in a light tempura...TOTALLY different to what arrived. The batter had a nice flavour but it was just huge balls of fried batter with little flecks of green in the ball which could have been anything. Very stodgy and disappointing. I didn't find the last two items overpriced but it did find the quality of the food disappointing despite the nice presentation. After that in Cadiz I ate vegan options in regular restaurants which were much cheaper and nicer. So I'm sad to say that I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone until the have more attention to detail in their food preparation and lower the prices of some of their products. I so wanted to give this place a good review after moaning forever of the lack of vegan restaurants in Andalucia...but...

Excellent and fresh vegan food with a varied and imaginative menu. La Veganesa has more than your standard veganized tapas laced with oil. We were pleased to have some tasty whole food based vegan dishes that were reasonably priced. My only gripe would be that service was slow and staff weren’t overly attentive.

Dishes: The tartar was very fresh and flavoursome and served with a few sweet potato wedges and a spicy mayo. Seaweed fritters were almost sponge-like in texture (not in a bad way). They were light, not greasy and had a subtle seaweed flavour. Very enjoyable with a squeeze of lemon and the dip. Finally the chickpea stew was very flavoursome and I enjoyed the contrast of the meaty shiitake mushrooms mixed in. The paprika sauce had a great umami. Could have done with a bit of bread though. Definitely a must visit...

I really loved my experience here and was very impressed with the food. Many dishes are quite unique and creative. I especially enjoyed the fried "calamari" (which were made with mushrooms, I believe) and the gnocchi with a creamy "blue cheese" and mushroom sauce. The BBQ seitan with potatoes and the pepper and "tuna" soup were tasty as well. They offer a small selection of homemade desserts - the carrot cake was great.

Reasonable prices. Cute ambiance and some outdoor seating. Great location near Cadiz's historic district. The staff speak minimal English but there is an English menu and we were able to get by.

I would definitely recommend stopping by and supporting the only vegan...