People lose their minds when I say I have a vegan Christmas dinner. The concept seems unfathomable that appeasing my herbivorous mother and not massacring a large galliform would also mean not sacrificing flavour.
Of course, this job throws up plenty of suckling piglets, boiled shells and lovely dead things, for which I do have residual childhood pangs of guilt. But NOT TODAY, Satan! We are treated to every vegan goth’s perfect evening out: a banging Southern American saintly soul food served to Adrian and me by the bassist of the Bristol hard rock band Turbowolf LD (Lianna Lee Davies), in a brewery literally named after a saint.
Saint Monday opened two years ago. Think the ethos (and background music) of heavy metal: a moody Christmas tree, shocking toilets and swing-chain partitions that threaten to take out an eye every time you pop to the loo. On the way back, you can gaze into the red-tinted room of bubbling beer tanks.
A large courtyard provides ample room for the fuming, and inside is a very carefully curated dive bar with comically low stools and a long wooden bench.
Steg, our appropriately attired and beaming cocktail guide, slaps down a Glaswegian daiquiri (Buckfast included, of course) and my less wreck-your-house-inflected Crodino spritz.
Across from us, glowing from within, is a plastic frosted cube covered in stickers and permeating the space with very meaty aromas. BUT NO – this is (apparently) the UK’s only vegan smokehouse.
The menu is to the point, covering lunch and dinner: four sandwiches, a salad, mac and cheese, three platters, one dessert and some sides. Direct and perfect if what you want to do is wow your Nightmare Before Christmas-loving friend, or have a murder-less Christmassy munch.
The brisket plate is uncanny-valley good. Handmade from mushroom, tofu and gluten, rubbed with salt and pepper and cooked in the breath of a dragon, these charred slabs of “meat” are truly phenomenal. Add in homemade pickles and you have a convert. Add the mini mac and cheese, with a sweetness jazzing up all that pasta and “cheesy” goodness.
Another brilliant side is the baked beans, a family recipe from her branch in the US, their vegan Thanksgiving dinners credited by LD with turning her onto the green side. Such depths of flavour –eat your heart out, Heinz.
The sand-ribs “ribs” are again indistinguishable from the real deal. How does she get the fatty parts, we scream? We will never know. Although the corn side is a little watery and tastes tinned. As The Distillers wail pleasantly in the background, some less effective dishes are assaulted. The club tofu is a stand-in for a chicken sandwich, with added facon and all. But the smoked tofu is tepid and a little bland, and the bread is uncomfortably hard.
However, LD’s pickled hot sauce, in all its Monster Mash greenness, will be served at my funeral. Equally, the Smokey Doe lives up to its namesake, the Sloppy Joe – a stew between two buns. The only things you can taste are the soy mince and tomato, beating out the jackfruit and American mustard lurking somewhere in the swamp.
A pickle sour that is neither alcoholic nor expected, and an apple sour that tastes like Toxic Waste sweets, and we roll back onto the seemingly endless bench.
As if meat mimicry weren’t enough, LD has a cracking backstory. When the virus broke amongst us, Turbowolf was stopped in its tracks. Returning to her love of cooking, she built a meatless empire delivering food (sometimes by her fellow bandmates) without Deliveroo or Uber Eats. Then a pop-up in the metal bar The Black Heart in Camden brought the dream to the capital, and now they’ve expanded down into our neck of the woods and flamed-up the smokehouse.
A bassist starting a vegan empire in the middle of a plague, while pregnant, is possibly the most rock and roll thing I’ve ever heard. Despite the lack of proper tables and chairs, I plan to return to try the Dirty Cob Out salad (which was out) and the three-peach Southern-style cobbler that we were too gorged to attempt. Festivity without excessive expense (£51 total for food), the guilt and all the forced gladness? You’ll tempt me back to the lentil way yet, LD!
