Gaz Oakley at Harvey Nichols

Popular vegan chef, YouTuber and Instagrammer, Gaz Oakley of ‘Avant Garde Vegan’ hosted a dinner party at Harvey Nichols for 40 people, serving six courses of very exciting and interesting vegan food.

Being within the walls of one of London’s finest department stores is always a nice experience (for me, anyway) because you pass by some of the most beautifully displayed clothes and luxury items on your journey to the top floor (and imagine yourself being able to shop here on a daily basis… just me!?)

Upon arrival and after checking our coats, we were given a complimentary drink. I opted for the ‘Gin Garden’, a gin cocktail similar to a mojito, containing mint, lemon and peas. Yes, actual peas… like from a pod. It was pretty great!

The layout of the big white room was beautiful, with two very long wooden tables decorated elegantly with pretty green foliage. Gaz and his team had gone to the effort to provide each dinner guest with an allocated seat and beautifully displayed place setting which was a nice, personal touch. Sitting as one long table meant we got to chat to other guests and revel in the experience as a collective of foodies, which was really enjoyable and made for a nice twist on the dining experience.

Now for the food….

The first course, the ‘amuse-bouche’ was raw beetroot ‘ravioli’ marinated in coconut honey and white wine vinegar, filled with wasabi cashew ‘cream cheese’ and served with crispy shallot rings, wasabi popcorn and raw vegetables.

This was even better than it sounds and for me, potentially the best dish of the night. I wasn’t expecting much as the dish was so tiny (obviously) but it was like a little and delicious surprise. The flavours were so perfectly paired and the cream cheese is one of the best vegan sauces I have had to date. Must learn how to make this!

For starter we had roasted squash, preserved lemon and blushed tomato arancini, filled with melted cashew ‘mozzarella’ with a squash and maple puree, charred red pepper chutney and crispy sage.

This was good but not as tasty as the tiny beetroot delight that it followed so I wasn’t as ‘wowed’. However, the squash and maple puree was incredible and definitely something I am going to try to make myself. Also, Gaz has perfected stringy vegan cheese. He talks about this in his new book and explains that his secret ingredient for this is tapioca starch. It really did look, feel and taste like mozzarella.

For main course there were two options and fortunately I was accompanied by my boyfriend, which meant that we could order both and go halves so we didn’t miss out on anything! We do this wherever we go because we are always desperate to try as many things on a menu as possible.

One of the dishes was a ‘fillet steak’ wellington and when it came out there was a quick second where I forgot it wasn’t actually beef, it looked so convincing! In fact, so did the second main dish but we will get to that.

So this was a rich seitan roast with English mustard, mushroom duxelles and sautéed spinach, wrapped in puff pastry and served with a smoked potato puree, caramelised baby onions, rich jus and baby vegetables. As intricate as it sounds and probably was to prepare, it was a hearty and simplistic enough dish that many people are familiar with.

The second of the two mains was (in my opinion) the better of the two. This was crispy Camden ale battered ‘fish’, triple cooked chips, creamy tartar sauce, smoked mushy peas and Gaz’s signature ketchup. Visually incredible, this dish was served in a very traditionally British fashion, atop a newspaper which happened to have the headline ‘Gaz Oakley Cooks at Harvey Nichols London.’ This was a clever, stylistic touch for his Instagram demographic.

As for the food itself, it was hard not to believe that it wasn’t actually fish on the board but instead it was the vegan favourite, tofu. The dish was incredible and Gaz’s ketchup, which came in its own little glass bottle, was perfectly sweet and tangy.

Finally, for dessert we were, once again, offered the choice of two dishes which, naturally we ordered one of each and shared. The coconut and vanilla ‘panna cotta’ with blood orange syrup, ‘meringue’ and lavender shortbread was really tasty but paled in comparison to the incredible chocolate dessert.

An almond and macadamia nut base, topped with rich date salted caramel, tempered chocolate, bubbly chocolate mousse, crunchy honeycomb and kirsch soaked cherries. HOLY MOLY this was one of the best desserts I have ever had, vegan or not.

With a few melt in the mouth truffles to finish, the dinner was a sensory and delicious experience. We were even fortunate enough to get our hands on early copies of Gaz’s hotly anticipated brand new vegan cookbook ‘Vegan 100’, which includes the recipes to everything on the menu for this dinner party. I will definitely be attempting to create that cream cheese this weekend!

You can pre-order Gaz Oakley's 'Vegan 100' book on Amazon.