W London Hotel’s Latest Chef Collaboration Introduces a New All Vegan Menu

Beginning Monday 5 March, chef-restaurateur and owner of Marylebone’s Jikoni, Ravinder Bhogal will be launching a new collaboration with Leicester Square’s W London hotel — the second in a series that previously featured Magnus Reid of Legs — for which she will create an entirely vegan menu to be served at The Perception bar until the end of June.

The menu, combining Bhogal’s “global culinary influences,” is said to have been created in homage to her niece, whose adoption of a vegan diet two years ago forced Ravinder to “think and cook in an original way — to design delicious dishes that... were incidentally vegan too.”

Of this homage, Ravinder said in a statement:

My niece and I have a very tight bond — she is a best friend, and more like a sister — she even gave me away at my wedding. When she became vegan, it made it necessary for me to think about a different way of cooking. I have really enjoyed the process of working with vegetables, fruits, grains and pulses without having to rely on the safety blankets of meat and dairy.

Courtesy Jikoni/Official

The resulting menu will feature dishes like besan fritters with coconut yoghurt and curry leaf, and Asian mushroom ragout with sweet potato gnocchi, alongside caramel tofu with garlic confit rice and chilli smacked cucumbers. Desserts will include rose, coconut and cardamom doughnuts as well as lemongrass and lime leaf sorbet served with charred pineapple and cashew and black pepper praline.

Benjamin Cowtan, beverage and food director at W London, expressed the company’s excitement at working with Bhogal, saying that “channeling her exemplary talent into an innovative vegan menu will add panache and excitement to Soho.”