Basecamp and Co. More and more vegan food providers in Bonn

Dottendorf · Vegan food is spreading - also in Bonn. Now there is a new snack bar at Basecamp. But other places in Bonn are also offering more and more vegan food.

 Henrik Röminger (right) hands Michael Schlößer, owner of Basecamp, a vegan dish from his new snack bar on the hostel grounds. Photo: Sofia Grillo

Henrik Röminger (right) hands Michael Schlößer, owner of Basecamp, a vegan dish from his new snack bar on the hostel grounds. Photo: Sofia Grillo

Foto: Sofia Grillo

Chef Henrik Röminger keeps out of the culinary world in which fruit and vegetables are available all year round from all over the world, in which every dish is offered as a ready-made product and it is often completely opaque exactly what ingredients are in the food. What grows in the field at the Leyenhof in Friesdorf goes into the cooking pot - and the finished dish has been on the plates of the "Hofliebe Organic Food" snack bar since April, which the chef opened on the grounds of the Basecamp hostel.

A snack bar where vegetarian and vegan dishes are served over the counter instead of fries and currywurst. Röminger no longer has to do pioneering work: vegan and vegetarian dishes are in great demand in Bonn, as other Bonn restaurateurs besides Röminger report. And so the range is gradually growing.

When a kohlrabi that was freshly harvested a few minutes earlier catches his eye, the ideas bubble up. "Then it's not about changing it much at all, but bringing out the fresh taste," says Henrik Röminger. Standing in the kitchen with grandma or parents and conjuring up delights on the plate is something he has enjoyed doing since he was a child.

Since his apprenticeship at the star hotel in Odenthal, conjuring up delights has been his profession. And as head chef at the Leyenhof, he really got to know the magic of fresh and seasonal vegetables. It was here that he established the Biomanufaktur - in other words, the concept that he now continues in his own snack bar: Produce, fresh from the field, food free from industrial products, free from meat and often free from eggs or dairy products.

"This is not about me pointing the finger. I offer people to try, and many customers don't even notice that a vegan dish tastes good to them," says Röminger. You rarely find upturned noses when the topic of vegan food comes up. It has arrived in society at large, and it is no longer just young, hip students who drink their coffee with oat milk, says the chef.

Gastronomes in Bonn's city centre have also gained this impression. You can now find vegan dishes on many menus, cafés offer their drinks with milk substitutes, supermarkets label their products vegan. At the Bonn market, you can now also find a food truck that offers only vegan food.

From the Lüneburger Heide to Bonn

Kamil Saleh founded his organic food stall (BiBu) in 2014. When he switched to a vegan diet himself at that time, he soon noticed that there was little vegan food on offer at events. He changed that with his food truck - originally in the Lüneburger Heide, then he landed in Bonn and stayed, as he puts it. "Bonn has a great alternative scene. The city is sustainably oriented and there are many students," he lists the reasons for staying. The majority of his customers, he says, are young people - not only vegans, but also people who like to give up animal products, but not always.

More and more younger customers are also mingling with the older ones at the Cassius Garten restaurant at the main railway station, which was already offering vegetarian and vegan food when the diet had not yet arrived in society at large. The restaurant has been around for 32 years. For about twelve years, it has labelled its exclusively vegetarian dishes if they are also vegan.

The wave came from America

"Before, there was no demand for vegan food. Then the wave started in America. When we then labelled our dishes, 50 per cent of them were already vegan," explains Jan Lüth, who is the second generation to run the restaurant. Since then, he and his chef have been trying to replace more and more animal ingredients with non-animal ones, and so, for example, the mayonnaise is now egg-free, and Cassius Garten makes its own soy milk and soy yoghurt.

As with Henrik Röminger, industrial substitutes do not make it onto the plate. And what cannot be cooked vegan retains its animal products, such as the cheesecake. "We want to be there for everyone: for vegans as well as for those who want their butter," explains Jan Lüth. As in the new snack bar on the Basecamp site, Lüth is all about appreciation for the food, inventiveness in how to process it and changing, creative dishes.

(Original text: Sofia Grillo; Translation: Mareike Graepel)

Meistgelesen
Neueste Artikel
Zum Thema
Aus dem Ressort