Let me take you back to May 1992. Early one morning I arrived at my place of work in Camden Town, London to see my best friend and colleague of many years standing outside smoking a cigarette. The puffing away wasn’t surprising (heck, everybody smoked then, including me) but the fact that he was sobbing into a handkerchief was of some concern. Upon careful questioning, he told me that his childhood and adult icon, Marlene Dietrich, had passed away the evening before. If you could have seen Michael’s apartment back then, you could not have missed the carefully framed Dietrich posters adorning the minimalist walls, upstaged only by provocative paintings entitled things like “nude male in the snow” and “a man. studied from multiple angles.”

So there I was, in the early 90s with my devastated, vegetarian, gay best friend and colleague who really needed to be cheered up. I decided I was going to take him somewhere really nice for dinner, and set about researching a good place for us to go. I eventually settled on The Gate which at that time was one of very few vegetarian restaurants in London and wasn’t too many tube stops from our place of work. Not only that, The Gate had just won a national award and had been voted the “best vegetarian restaurant in London” as it has many times since.

Yeah, it was expensive, but it’s not every day that Marlene Dietrich passes away so I decided to splurge and treat Michael to a dinner he would not forget. Several courses, a number of beers and two bottles of wine later he was much more pleased with himself and life in general, as was I. To this day, I don’t recall what food we ate, but it was absolutely sublime. Probably not vegan, but I was just a vegetarian then, so the mere fact that stuff wasn’t made with chicken stock was more than enough for me.

the gate interior

Fast forwarding 17 years to last week, the wife and I happened to be in West London where The Gate is located, and I couldn’t resist wandering past to see if we could get a table. After all, the place would probably be packed at 7pm but it would be nice at least to see inside and remember the old days (The Gate is located in an old community hall/church that was tastefully reconstructed for high-end dining, so the architecture alone is worth a visit).

Well, we arrived and the place was empty. There was even some music playing loudly from the kitchen that was turned down just after we walked in. Let’s not forget, the UK is in a major recession now and so $75 a head upscale restaurants probably are not that popular. Regardless, we were seated at a tiny two-top table, served warm bread and handed two large menus (which if opened up together were actually larger than our table) that were stuffed full of amazing sounding dishes.

It was only after extensive scanning of the options on the menu that we discovered (after ordering a $50 bottle of wine, I might add, after which it’s impossible to leave a restaurant) that the amazing sounding stuff all had milk, eggs, cheese, cream or yoghurt in them. There were only three vegan options on the menu, one of which was an appetizer. OK, so it was a vegetarian restaurant, and had I been one, as I was 17 years ago, I would have dined like a king. Again. HOWEVER, The Gate is NOT for vegans. Don’t go there if you’re vegan. The dairy glorification on the menu of “home cultured yogurt” and “creamy sauce” was enough to make me fly back to LA and get a bad noodle salad from Pure Luck.

So, we ordered what we could and enjoyed having this cavernous restaurant to ourselves. The appetizer was a plate of steamed new potatoes and miscellaneous vegetables that was perfectly cooked and well presented. Our main dishes were Red Thai Coconut Curry and Sweet Potato Tortillas which were of high quality and extremely tasty. However, the limited vegan options and exorbitantly high prices ($23 for my coconut curry, and that’s with an exchange rate advantageous to the dollar) meant that we left feeling ripped off (the total bill was just under $100), and still hungry.

excellent new potato appetizer from the gate.

meh and pricey tortilla dish from the gate.

blah expensive curry from the gate.

The Gate certainly isn’t what it was all those years ago, probably because I’m older, a vegan, drink less and don’t have a recently bereaved friend to console. Although I’m not entirely to blame – The Gate makes no apologies about being vegetarian and clearly caters to vegans as an afterthought. If you don’t eat animal products, this is definitely a place to skip.

the gate. don't bother.