Lolo's Vegan Restaurant & Bar Market Street Ramsbottom - 7th December 2016

Lolo's has been on my radar for ages and I knew if I did not put a date in my dairy, I would never get there, so I chose the 7th December.   Lolo's is in Ramsbottom, not far from Bury and describes itself as a 1920's style vegan restaurant and cocktail bar.   I loved its art deco retro style and complimentary sound tracks of the era, making for a very relaxed atmosphere for dining.

Lolo's use organic and local produce where possible, offering fresh cooked dishes, along with some vegan junk food and cakes made on site.   Their commitment to being environmentally friendly and sustainable, includes using renewable electricity, recyclable and biodegradeable products, with all cleaning products and things like hand soaps all vegan.

Lolo's were runner up in The Observer Monthly Food Awards for best ethical restaurant of 2016 and listed in Manchester Evening News best vegan restaurant list 2017.

They are open Wednesday to Saturday, for lunch and dinner, with a wide range of beers, organic wines and delicious sounding cocktails, have events like Jazz evenings and the venue is available for private hire.

The lunch menu is varied and how brilliant I could order anything I fancied, so I ordered an Earl Grey tea and Steven a Fentimans ginger beer, whilst we made our choices.

I chose the spinach tart, with Mediterranean salad and basil dressing, the three potato hash for Steven and a side order of raw green salad to share.  

The food was delicious, my salad included many favourite ingredients, artichokes, pine nuts, olives, basil and Steven loved the hash, with three kinds of potato including purple, which added a vibrant colour to the dish, fried tofu, sour cream and avocado. The simplicity of the raw green salad, with live sprouts could have been bland, but I could have eaten a large portion on my own, it was so tasty.   If it were not for the fact, that we had to leave due to other commitments, we would have tucked into one of their desserts or cakes.  

Service was friendly and efficient and I had a brief chat with our waitress Natasha, a vegan of twelve months, who was very enthusiastic and explained that all the chefs were vegan, how comforting for their vegan diners.

We both immediately said, we would have to revisit in the New Year for dinner and to sample some cocktails.  I am hoping to arrange to meet up with my vegan Twitter friend Chris Balmer (@ThePlayandRatel) a local lad, who I am sure can recommend which cocktails to dive into first.