Diners are turning their backs on plant-based dishes
Veganism was one of the late 2010s’ defining food trends. Beyond Burger and Moving Mountains launched ‘bleeding’ vegan patties (beetroot doing the heavy lifting), faux meats went mainstream, and plant-based versions of fast food classics flooded the market. London followed suit, with vegan butchers, cheesemongers, curry houses and chippies opening across the city.
Now, though, London seems to have fallen out of love with veganism, and hard. We’ve noticed fewer vegan options on menus and far fewer Veganuary pitches landing in our inboxes this year.
Data shows that sales of plant-based food in Britain have fallen 4.5% in the year to January 2025, with brands reducing their vegan product lines and restaurants cutting back on vegan dishes – Wagamama removed the Vegatsu along with other vegan items in 2025 after pledging to make 50% of its menu plant-based in 2021. All Veggie Prets, which first began opening in 2016 and grew to ten sites at its peak, have been converted back to regular stores.
For food consultant and founder at Good Food Studio Amir Mousavi, this decline is the inevitable consequence of artificial hype. “For a few years, the sector was less about food and more about financial momentum. Venture capital poured into brands promising rapid disruption, and the quickest way to sell that story was through meat imitation it seemed,” he states. “This was a hunch, and it was artificially amplified, and now it’s failed, disastrously. The closer a product looked, bled and behaved like meat, the more investable it seemed, regardless of whether it actually moved the dial on health, sustainability or food quality, none of which were part of the original intent.”
Many dedicated vegan restaurants that opened during the boom have shut up shop, including The Vurger Co, Rudy’s Vegan Diner, Halo Burger and Neat Burger. Rachel Sugar reports that the situation is similar over in NYC, where a number of vegan restaurants have closed. Eleven Madison Park, which went vegan in 2021 and retained its three Michelin stars in 2022, reintroduced meat to the menu in 2025 in an effort to encourage more diners to come in after feeling the strain financially.
Holy Carrot, the popular plant-based Notting Hill spot led by chef Daniel Watkins, is opening a second site in Spitalfields this spring but it’ll no longer be vegan but will offer a vegetarian menu instead. According to founder Irina Linovich, “Plants remain at the core of what we do, with dairy and eggs introduced thoughtfully” in an effort to create a more inclusive dining experience. As Sugar writes, “one challenge, then, of running a vegan restaurant is to be the right amount of vegan: vegan enough to communicate to vegans that you’re vegan, but not so vegan that you alienate the vast majority of the dinner-seeking population.”
Beyond Meat, one of the leading plant-based meat alternatives companies, has also been struggling financially; the company has denied bankruptcy rumours but has been dealing with slow sales as demand has waned. As Mousavi says, “Brands like Neat Burger and Beyond Meat were amplified far faster than consumer behaviour ever justified, propelled by funding rounds, celebrity backers and influencer ecosystems paid to tell people this was the future of food. Meat analogues were positioned as revolutionary when, in reality, many of them were just another form of highly engineered, ultra-processed food wearing a plant-based badge.”
There are a number of factors behind the bursting of the vegan bubble. For some, who took up veganism to help save the planet, have realised that the climate crisis is so bad, their efforts, however valiant, will ultimately have a negligible impact, so they’ve returned to eating animal products. As Jordan Page states in the Standard,” It’s much like how we gave up plastic straws to save the turtles, but the likes of Elon Musk, Taylor Swift and the Kardashians seem set on boiling them alive anyway with the carbon emissions released during their frivolous private jet journeys.” Practices like regenerative agriculture, something that’s championed by companies like Wildfarmed and The Ethical Butcher, show how responsible meat consumption can have a positive impact on the environment and can help address the challenges faced by our food systems.
In a cost-of-living crisis, choices are also being dictated by price. Plant-based alternatives are often expensive for consumers to buy and for restaurants, making veggies sing in the same way as meat or fish can be more labour intensive than slapping a steak on a grill. Even more processes are required when it comes to turning plant-based ingredients into products that closely resemble meat.
A lot of these vegan alternatives, including faux meats and plant-based milks, have benefitted from the halo effect of appearing healthy because they’re made of plants, despite being ultraprocessed. Whether they are inherently healthier or not (fake meats have less saturated fat and fewer calories than real meat but they can be higher in salt and lower in fibre, and some plant-based milks have oils added to them to improve the texture), there’s been a real pushback on UPFs. Vegan alts are out, protein maxxing and fibre maxxing are the trends of today.
Sam Anstey, MD of Mildreds Restaurant Group, reports strong footfall and bookings for his vegan restaurants but has seen how the plant-based category is becoming more sophisticated, saying “consumer preferences are shifting away from processed alternatives and towards healthy, plant-forward nutritious options. We don’t see a collapse in demand, but more discerning customers.” However the push towards protein has led to a growth in meat-led dishes. According to Lumina data, in the first quarter of 2025, vegetarian options in pubs and restaurants were shrinking alongside an uptick in meat-led dishes, with high-protein chicken dishes being a major driver.
The popularity of veganism has also led to its downfall. All restaurants were forced to up their game on their veggie and vegan dishes so as not to be left behind, meaning that there are generally much better options across the board. People can dine in mixed groups knowing that everyone is better catered for, lessening the need to go to vegan-specific restaurants.
In her Grub Street piece, Rachel Sugar reported that as vegan offerings began to disappear, meat consumption increased, with US sales hitting a record $104.6 billion in 2024. We’ve certainly noticed an increase in steak on restaurant menus across London, and it’s appeared on many wine bar menus too, often as the only large sharing dish.
There’s certainly braggadocio that comes with ordering a big juicy steak in a restaurant but even those who don’t care about flexing on socials are dropping money on meat. The news is bleak and life is hard enough without trying to maintain a restrictive diet, so people are splurging on little luxuries where they can – you may not be able to buy a house in London, but you can buy a steak.
