QUEENS OF THE VEGAN AGE

In the seaside town of Bridlington on Yorkshire’s east coast, two sisters have been cooking up something a little different to the fish and chip traditions here. Owner Katie opened The Nut and Nettle at the Queens two years ago, and since then have introduced locals and visitors to just how great plantbased food can be. Chef Beth tells us all about it.

Cooking and Creativity

I came to cooking from a creative arts background, live performance and gallery curation. I ended up working and training in vegan cooking across the UK, France, Italy, India and Spain, honing my skills and developing my personal style. I find a real sense of expression through food - of my creativity in experimenting with flavours, textures and plating aesthetics, but also my personal ethics and food philosophy.

The Taste of Plant-based

With every mouthful I hope to show just how tasty and exciting vegan food can be. Through the elements of my seasonal dishes I hope to honour and reflect the bounty and generosity of the land with the changing seasons. For example, one of my latest seasonal dishes is beetroot and stinging nettle arancini, served with a butterbean-beetroot dip, rosemary-smoked almonds and crispy wild nettles I foraged from the local woods. Another seasonal dish we created for our last tasting menu was smoked carrot ‘salmon’, whereby we marinated locally-grown carrots in fresh seaweed foraged from Flamborough Head. The carrots were then slowly roasted for two hours in the seaweed and smoked spices, then thinly sliced and placed atop a buckwheat and black pepper blini, with hemp seed ‘creme fraiche’, candied pecans and more crispy wild seaweed.

Local Seasonal Ethical Exquisite

In this part of Yorkshire we are blessed with an abundance of locally-grown vegetables, but also wild foraged edibles, such as mushrooms, seaweed, berries and herbs. At The Nut and Nettle we strive to create exquisite handmade food from unique ingredients, connecting back to our local land by shortening the distance between ingredient and plate; ultimately challenging the perception that vegan food is unexciting or bland.

I am particularly enamoured by the possibilities of vegan patisserie, after being inspired by visits to many beautiful boulangeries whilst working in Paris. I love to weave in traditional French patisserie techniques into my sweet dishes, creating vegan versions of classics such as macarons, meringues, eclairs and viennoiserie that people would never guess were plant-based. We aim to create an inclusive space with creative and tasty food that can be enjoyed by everyone.