Lots of comments complaining about restaurants not being inclusive, but it’s unrealistic to expect others to bend to your needs.
I can’t go to a vegan joint and get upset when they don’t want to serve me a steak.
Nor can I het upset when a restaurant isn’t Halal.
If you want vegan, go to a place that sells vegan food.
I’m a french vegetarian living in France after living 6 years in Scotland, France is years behind on the diet inclusion issue, I was shocked how difficult it was to find a place to eat out in Paris, way too many cafe/restaurant/etc… gets defensive and refuse to serve you if you don’t have the “historical diet” (whatever that means) of france, and a lot of them don’t offer any “common alternative diet” options on the menu. And it’s not better outside of Paris.
Then of course there are some great places that try to include everyone regardless of their diet, and they are increasing in numbers, but they are still the exception rather than the norm which is a shame.
If you ever goes in Paris and looking for a fully vegetarian classy restaurant, I recommand “Polichinelle”, it’s a bit on the expensive side (~50 euro/person), but it’s high level cuisine, and for a special occasion it’s really worth it.
Italy is just as bad with this kind of stuff, at least in my experience. I’m not even vegan or vegetarian, but I saw it happen a lot when I was there. They had the same kind of “historical diet” excuse, and I’m sitting here thinking “you fuckers didn’t even get tomatoes until the 16th century and now you’re acting like you invented them.”
I hate food purists so much.
Not many vegan options around, but one place in Sorrento made me the best vegan pizza I ever had when I asked (there was nothing vegan on the menu). No vegan cheese necessary, I think it was the crust and oil that made it. Got bored of the same tomato pasta item every night at the hotel though.
One of the most basic pizza, the marinara (tomato, oil, garlic, oregano) is technically vegan and any pizzeria worth its name will have it on the menu.
Interesting, thanks. The Sorrento place was a cafe so they didn’t specialise in pizza, but it sure was good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a marinara pizza marked vegan here in Oz. They probably all use bulk garlic sauce bottles with milk as ingredient.
I’m guessing you’re not in Melbourne then, but Red Sparrow is a fully vegan pizza restaurant with a few locations there. Very good, from what I’ve heard.
Never been to Italy, but I expected it would be even worse over there, Italians are often very invested in their opinion about food😄 some of my Italian friends can spend the whole meal debating about what they are eating
Pasta too lol Cut it with the knife and you get to eat for free… until they kick you out
All of Europe is highly anti veg. As it should be.
Proof: just trust me bro.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a German restaurant without a good choice of vegetarian options and at least some vegan ones. Germany is about 2% vegan, 10% ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and 55% flexitarian. That’s 67% of the population having an active look at those choices and you’d be very out of place with “if there’s no meat it’s not food” comments. You just insulted a huge number of quite cherished traditional dishes.
Go on, go, go to Swabia and say that Käsespätzle are not food. I’m waiting. They’ll probably lock you into a madhouse.
A French person decrying the lack of quality food in Paris in comparison to Scotland. British cuisine is truly amazing.
Haha, Indeed the irony is at its maximum. Although, I think haggis was pretty good (even the vegetarian version)
While I’m talking about it, have you guys seen the documentaries about wild haggis ? https://youtu.be/tvLXG4_SoO4
The French are actually quite conservative in many ways.
In Italy, at “L’Isola della Pizza” in Rome, I asked the guy if I could get a pizza with salami, pepperoni, and sausage, and the guy was like “ah, American style!”
I’ll go ahead and recommend HappyCow for anyone looking for plant-based options outside of their home community.
They have a map where people can suggest places that have vegetarian or vegan options but are mostly omnivorous, or full on vegetarian or vegan restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, food trucks, you name it. I think HappyCow the company also verifies the places people upload so it’s somewhat vetted.
I find that starting with HappyCow and then cross-referencing with Google Maps or OSM gives me the best results.
So I guess, fuck lactose intolerant, amiright?
“If yeu cannot drink le milk, don’t order le cafe’ with le milk.”
but I’m le tired
well take a nap. Then don’t order the coffee with ze milk!
Fuckin kangaroos.
Paradox of tolerance: if we allow the lactose intolerant to exist amongst us, their intolerance will not tolerate our tolerationess. First they came for the milk, and I said nothing for I was not a cow…
Then they came for the guns and I said nothing because I’m not a pig…
I’d imagine most French people who are lactose intolerant just take their coffee without any kind of milk.
Not sure if that’s a thing in France, but alternatively to plant milk for lactose intolerant
- Lactose-free milk (there are versions with lactose removed instead of broken down, that aren’t sweet and taste basically the same as normal milk)
- Lactase enzyme taken together with the coffee, to break lactose down
I don’t really see plant milk as the lactose-intolerant variant, but a vegan option, but that might just be due to the fact Finland has lactose-free milk available as an option basically everywhere as milk is such an important part of the coffee culture.
I think if you’d rank all European countries according to how important milk is in their coffee culture, France might be at the bottom. Although I’m not sure about south-eastern countries regarding this, they might score low too.
Yep, I also think the French in general don’t really appreciate Finnish coffee culture, if their presidents reaction is anything to go by. Still one of my favourite pictures.
Nice, was this in Finland?
Yep, I think it’s from Helsinki market square – and not sure if this needs to be said but not taken by me 😅
Yes.
I love France they take food and tradition seriously while at the same time their own government is afraid off them.
If I were a government, I’d be afraid of French traditions, too.
All governments should be afraid of their people. The French ae doing something right.
I was on vacation in Flavigny, an incredibly beautiful small village in Burgundy. I wanted my green beans straight from the garden behind the restaurant without butter and asked to use olive oil instead. The waiter was like “Why!?”. It took me five minutes to convince him, he was absolutely unsympathetic and I think I had to pay extra. :)
Honestly, there is a bit of a pride fight in France between the butter cuisines at the North of the Loire river and the olive cuisines at the South of the Loire. So it might not be that much against the idea of make the dish vegan.
Still that useless, stupid pride. I cook burgeondy dishes with olive oil whenever I feel like it and it is still very good. Not quite the same taste but delicious nevertheless.
That’s interesting information, thanks!
Your welcome (^_^)
Have you had a chance to try one of their anices?Yeah, they’re great. I love Burgundy.
But it’s a long trip from western Germany, that’s why I don’t go as often as I’d like to.
il veut qu’on fasse de l’agriculture, c’est ridicule
Why would you eat beans without butter? Are you barbarian?
i like plain unseasoned green beans, fight me
Straight out of the pot, right! 🙌
I don’t think in barbarian, no. But butter is scary!
WTF is this lunacy? I guess you are a barbarian!
I assure you I am not
If they don’t have oat milk, what should’ve they said?
The French are right. When you have fabled cuisine, lauded all over the world as the gold standard… you get resistant to change. And rightfully so.
Putain, non, is indeed the proper response to said question.
Food snobs might be one of my least favorite types of humans there are. The minute I hear/see someone start talking about how they would never eat that or whatever other bullshit, is almost like I’m hearing them start talking about the good things Trump is doing for everyone. Let’s never cross paths again, you’re insufferable.
Either that, or oat milk isn’t on the menu and he didn’t have any.
I’m also referring to this thread.
Then that is a failure on the business. It is a very common request.
It’s only a failure if they wanted to do that kind of business. If I open an Italian restaurant and someone orders Thai, did I fail?
“Do you have eggs? Yes. Do you have noodles? Yes. Do you have curry paste? Yes. Do you…”
~ worst customer you will ever meet
There is a difference between a restaurant of a specific cusine and plainly deniying acommodating for common dietary preferences. Be it for health or ethical reasons. I guess in most cuisines worldwide there are either plenty of suitable dishes already available or they should be at least easy to accomodate. But sometimes it seems it’s even too much of an ask to leave out some simple ingredients.
Sure. There is a scale where my example was an extreme for illustration. Your point a very reasonable one as well. If I was running a a cafe I would offer it but I am Canadian. If I were french and you asked for a baguette olive loaf you would find yourself in a guillotine. Context matters and traditions matter more than commerce in many cultures.
“Deny accommodating for common dietary preference”, how? Have your coffee black, there, completely lactose-free. If you ask for a latte, don’t be surprised when you get milk. If you don’t want milk, don’t order a latte. Do you know what “latte” translates to?
Seems like more a failure of you for not checking if they do oat milk. And they likely do lots of other types of vegan milk as alternatives
Honestly, the kind of person who gets pissy about this kind of thing, you’re probably better off not having in your restaurant or cafe anyway. Because they’ve probably got a list of food requirements
I have a friend with actual gluten intolerance, and she stopped telling restaurants about it specifically because otherwise they’d freak out. She’d just order things like minimal gluten and only ask if she wasn’t sure.
But she’d never ask for substitutions either
There is no way of knowing how busy this place is. They might be completely full and serving 10 different types of milk might simply slow things down and increase their risk if they accidentally mix the containers
It’s not common at all.
“At all”?
In the year 2024, Oatly had annual revenue of $823.67M with 5.15% growth. Oatly had revenue of $214.32M in the quarter ending December 31, 2024, with 4.99% growth.
Oatly’s key markets are Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. The company’s products were available in 60,000 retail stores and 32,200 coffee shops around the world as of 31 December 2020.
Do you really think that Sweden, Germany and UK is all the world there is? I’ve got a surprise for you.
I get the sneaking suspicion you enjoy being contrarian for contradictions sake.
Yes. About 2/3rd of the worldwide population is lactose-intolerant. Hence, it is really common to ask for lactose-free products.
That’s a myth really. Lactose intolerant don’t drink lattes in the first place. But they might not be that intolerant in the first place
Most of the lactose-intolerant population isn’t asking for lattes for the simple reason that their cuisine doesn’t use dairy at all.
Also FWIW Italy is quite lactose-intolerant. It’s why you hear things like “no cappuccino after noon” and stuff, many Italians don’t vibe well with more than one of those things.
In Europe, dairy intolerance is actually extremely rare. It’s Asia where intolerance is common
You can’t use worldwide stats to represent a localised region
In this thread, most of both the French and the vegans are insufferable. I like a nice strong black coffee and I don’t eat a lot of meat, but there’s a reason I don’t really want to go back to Paris or to half of the vegan restaurants I try.
I mean, it really depends on their delivery.
If they’re acting like it somehow un-stinks their shit, ok fuck off.
However, there are certain foods that everyone loves that I simply cannot stand. Cake, is a big one. I will actively seek against eating cake. It frequently leaves me feeling gross, especially on an empty stomach. I do not see it as good. I can understand someone speaking about food like that.
I love France and all, but let’s not pretend they have good coffee culture. What passes for cappuccino there… The horrors I’ve seen.
Coffee lovers and cappuccino are mutually exclusive terms IMHO :D.
Italy entered the chat…
Well, if it’s before 11AM at least
There is plenty of good coffee in Paris, but you need to go to typically smaller places where they only make that.
Although I don’t drink milk much anymore I wouldn’t know if the cappuccino they make is good.
It’s crazy, food is top notch, or what you pay for it, but coffee is always the french 3/4. So not very good.
To be fair, they invented it and the Italians refined the espresso in 1961 so.
Part of why it’s relatively bad is because they still make it the same way as they did back then
Sure, but the “third wave” coffee is even worse IMO.
Is that foamy lattes w syrup?
Nah, the “hipster espresso” I’d call it. Usually tastes sour, "but that’s normal, not everyone can appreciate all the ‘flavours’ "
Ah, I am guilty of liking that. But I do think it is a very different taste than regular dark roasted chocolaty coffee and they should suprise you with a funky light-roasted one as their standard bean. Those are more suited for specialty places where they have multiple grinders with multiple beans.
Sure no problemo ! But why can’t they have an espresso that at least is somewhat like a real Italian one …
This never happened. They would have given him a cup of black coffee and said " bro you’re in France now"
Literally going to be flying to Paris today.
Good to know I guess lol.
The waiter probably was conveying it’s not on the menu or is out of stock. No big deal…
For extremely busy restaurants / cafe’s where people are already waiting long periods, they probably don’t want to overcomplicate things too, and increase the risk . They’d have to keep 2 different milk frothing machines, and every time a customer got sick, risk getting sued, whilst slowing down the efficiency of orders.
Whilst it might increase the number of potential customers, in practice, it might only have negatives
