Hello,
My fun group will be staying in Portree soon, and I would appreciate knowing of great restaurants in Portree that offer Vegan menu options.
If you can't think of any, I'd appreciate knowing of "normal" (preferable local) fun restaurants. (My Vegan friend is willing to have salad, if needed!) I can't believe how far in advance tables are booking up!!
Please send thoughts my way. We really appreciate your help. Thanks!
Ron
Most places will have at least one vegan option. But if you are willing to travel further afield (an hour) from Portree (between Dunvegan and Neist Point lighthouse) there is an excellent vegetarian and vegan restaurant called Chidakasha in Glendale. Reservations are essential. Well worth a journey.
Alternatively there is an excellent pizza place called Gasta at the Skye Candles visitor centre on the edge of Portree and I'm pretty sure they can offer vegan pizza (worth checking with them though!).
Not sure what your definition of 'fun' is, but I have eaten at both places many times and really enjoyed my meal and the atmosphere.
In addition it is always worth contacting the restaurant you fancy. These are no longer the days when the vegetarian options included chicken, and restaurants may be likely to see this as a challenge they'd like to meet.
The joke in My Big Fat Greek Wedding about making the vegetarian some lamb, and in An Ungentlemanly Act about making a vegetarian there a bolognaise as 'they are not meat' are in the films for good reasons! My gran made a dish for my now brother in law of chicken when she heard he was a vegetarian, because chicken is not beef and therefore not meat.
Those days are well past, and it is well worth asking. If there is not a vegan option on the menu, they can usually rustle one up, and all but the smallest places are likely to have something plant based or at the least vegetarian but including dairy and eggs.
in 2022, we found most restaurants had an "allergies" menu that included lots of info about special entrees and detailed ingredient lists for regular menu options. We travel with a friend with Lupis, and every meal included something she could enjoy, even if it took a couple of trips to the kitchen by the server for extra info. Her list of allergies makes vegan mundane.
Not Scotland specific, but UK in general, you will find menus very well marked as to allergies, and nearly always some vegan and/or vegetarian options. You will also be asked, by every wait person, if there are any allergies or restrictions in the group. At least that is our experience.
I'm vegan and sometimes use www.happycow.net to check out restaurants in a new area.
I will say I have found it more difficult to find vegan options in England, Scotland and France since Covid. Previously there were usually a couple of options that would work, now there is likely one which is all you need but it helps if it's not the same one from place to place, lol.
I think the bigger issue will be 'great' and 'fun' rather than vegan. Portree is a small town/large village and there are limited dining options. I think you will have to take what you can get at the end of the day. As I said above, by far the best veggie and vegan food on the island is Chidakasha. But it's a distance from Portree and you will need a car and a reservation.
Not Portree, but rather Hadrian's Wall, is The Greenhead Hotel (10 minutes drive west of Haltwhistle), on the main road bus route. Not listed on the above Happy Cow website. I noticed it by chance on Monday when passing through. Quite a comprehensive looking Vegan menu- https://www.greenheadbrampton.co.uk/_files/ugd/65c463_34df88d210764581ad97825ebd852f10.pdf
But may as well put it here so it crops up on a Vegan search.
