Lauren V.
Yelp
It pains me to give this great concept of a restaurant a poor review.
I'm gluten and dairy free - I am not vegan or vegetarian - but I empathised with the owner's reason for creating this place. Because basically, if you have any kind of very strict diet, eating out sucks.
After following the opening in the media, I had two big (yet reasonable considering the hype) expectations of Ethos:
1. It would be the kind of place you could take people who haven't a food issue care in the world to show them that eating this way can be totally awesome when done right.
2. That things I normally have to skip like cakes (because of the flour) scotch eggs (because of the breading), asian noodles (because of the soy sauce) would be available to me since the restaurant takes consideration for healthier alternatives to the "norm."
Sadly, neither of the above happened for me.
I took fellow Yelper Rachael E and she was great - asked a lot of questions and really tried to get to know the restaurant and its aim. She is neither veggie or GF or DF but had an adventurous attitude and an open mind. Perfect.
The food is served buffet style, and you load up your plate then pay by weight. There are cards by each dish that describe the food and also indicate if it's vegan, veggie, GF (no notes for DF but can fall back on vegan I guess).
I ended up eating Eritrean Mango Salad, Puy Lentils & Kohlrabi, Courgette Ribbons and Feta, Butternut Squash with Spinach and Feta, along with some roasted potatoes and some marinated olives.
Because the food is out, it means the hot food isn't really hot and the cold food isn't really cold. The potatoes tasted like they had been cooked several hours ago and left in a bowl on a counter ... because they had. The olives had a soapy taste to them and the salads were sort of soggy because of the dressings. The Courgette Ribbons ended up being my favourite simply because it tasted the freshest.
I paid £14.50 for my plate (and uploaded a photo to get an idea of what that gets you) and £6 for a glass of malbec. You pay by weight as I mentioned, a concept that came under suspicion after placing my moderately filled plate on the scale and thinking "that plate was actually really heavy ... am I paying for that too?"
After paying you find a seat in the beautifully finished dining hall and feast away.
As for my expectations:
1. I felt so bad about our tepid, soggy pay-by-weight meal that I tried to buy drinks the rest of the night to make up for it.
2.I still had to stare longingly at all the cakes I couldn't eat. What I WAS able to eat were the kinds of things I make at home for myself (salads), which felt like a let down. They were meals that are naturally gluten/dairy free. I guess I wanted to feel like they nailed gluten-free carrot cake or vegan chilli or dairy-free ice cream or whatever.
So our experience was sadly unimpressive. Not in concept, I love the concept, but in execution. Keep in mind it was only their second week so there may be some things to iron out yet. And I'm sure the options change weekly if not daily and maybe I missed a glut of GF and DF options in their arsenal.
Also, I am not exactly their target diner, but I hope to be someday as they grow into this niche of serving diners who are much more food conscious.