A few weeks ago we visited the small town of Skipton in north Yorkshire, it was not long before we came across one of the best selections of vegan food this side of one of our festivals. The Castle Inn is a traditional English pub with a wealth of history, in fact The Castle Inn is a grade II English Heritage listed building dating back to the early 1800s. As coaching house, it provided shelter and nourishment for the many visitors to the town’s ancient agricultural market. The original stables still exist today to the rear of the inn.
One of the largest challenges when going vegan is eating out, although most places have vegetarian options few still have vegan menus, but to my surprise this cosy pub had a large blackboard outside showing it was a vegan friendly establishment, so we had to give it a try.
The selection of vegan options looked delicious and found it hard to decided what the choose, then I was faced with a even larger dilemma when the waitress offered me the special of the day (Fish & Chips), obviously the fish was not of the swimming variety but tofu. The waitress went in to great depth on how the Chef prepared it, but can’t recall all the details due to my hunger was taking my focus away, but apparently the answer to vegan fish and chips was in the way the Chef used seaweed. The average meal cost approx £9 which I thought was fair as the portions were very generous, although I did manage to finish the meal I struggled with the Mississippi Mud Pie (£5.25).
The Castle Inn had a warm cosy atmosphere that was very vegan friendly, if your in the area pop along for a great evening (Quiz night is on Sunday’s). Incidentally when we were there for lunch and our evening meal, we were surprised how many people were asking for their vegan options, again this goes to show that veganism is growing in the UK.
