Small , but perfectly formed
says Amy Bennett of the south east Asian vegantastic Bonsai Plant Kitchen
“
We want to give the five star service of Michelin star restaurant but without any of the kind of things that we deem unnecessary such as you know , serving from a certain side or all that kind of stuff . We want to deliver amazing food , amazing service in a relaxed setting . We ’ re a 100 % vegan south east Asian restaurant in the heart of Brighton in Baker Street . All small plates . We pride ourselves on high energy and low kinda … poncey-ness …
We ’ re with Amy Bennett , co founder of Bonsai Plant Kitchen .
“ So basically , Bonsai was started by myself and Dom . I ’ m 22 and he ’ s 27 . So myself and Dom are both college dropouts and both just jumped into the hospitality industry .
“ I became a waiter , he became a chef . I had no intention of being a chef , but kind of worked really really hard and the head chef kind of said to me “ I ’ ve seen your work ethic , do you want to come into the kitchen ?” So my whole chef career started that way , coming all the way up to a sous chef and then head pastry chef .
“ I was always vegan but was working in really meat heavily dominated restaurants . So then I decided that I wanted to move to Brighton to work in a vegan or vegetarian restaurant , moved to working at Food For Friends , met Dom , he was head chef , I was the head pastry chef . And decided that we wanted to open our own thing . He wanted to do something Asian . I wanted to do something vegan , and so we created Bonsai .
Tell us a bit more about the food . What ’ s your favorite dish ? “ OK , so we ’ ve got a tempura cauliflower that ’ s probably my favorite , because any kind of vegan restaurant that you go to , they offer you some kind of battered cauliflower dish . So when people kind of see it on the menu , they don ’ t really think much of it . They think ‘ Oh , here we go again , another battered cauliflower dish ’. But it ’ s just absolutely phenomenal . People tend to walk away and say that that is their favorite dish .”
A longer version of this interview is featured on The Brighton Whistler podcast , available at all the usual places .
Bonsai Plant Kitchen 44-45 Baker St , Brighton BN1 4JN . 07514 336086 https :// www . bonsaiplantkitchen . co . uk
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