Vegan Italian food? We review the unusual restaurant Fed by Water in Kingsland High Street in East London's Dalston

My first ever dream job was, at the age of five, to own my café. I continue to toy with the idea and, more recently, have spent much time musing with my other half about what the perfect vegan restaurant would be.

After visiting many vegan restaurants over the last six months while idealising a meat-free diet, we’ve found many an interesting feature to discuss in relation to our daydream. Fed by Water, however, embodied it.

The restaurant claims to be a “brand new concept”, in that it offers authentic, traditional Italian cuisine with the objective of bringing the nutritional importance of pure water – that is, water without the impurities found in tap water such as limescale, chlorine and bacteria.

Through Italian food the company presents an alkaline focussed diet that is both healthy and vegan. This may not clearly coincide with rich Italian cuisine, but they produce seven different types of vegan cheese onsite while sourcing as many ingredients as possible from the surrounding area with a few things being shipped over from Italy itself.

Health promises aside, this is a wonderful, welcoming restaurant with incredible food.

I began my visit with Prosecco cocktails. I went for a classic Bellini (£7) with peach juice, while my partner chose the Hugo (£8), which is served with elderflower St. Germaine liqueur, soda and mint.

To start, keen to try as much as possible, we shared the caprese innocente (£5.95) and the fungo ripieno (£8.95).

The first, caprese innocente, is slices of home-made “caciocavalla” (semi hard) soy cheese, beef tomatoes and basil served with home-made-marble bread or gluten-free crackers.

It was astonishing that the caciocavalla was dairy-free, it created the perfect alternative to a classic dish - tomato and mozzarella salad.

The second starter, fungo ripieno, was staggeringly spectacular. Baked Portobello mushrooms which were cooked perfectly to carry its stuffing of onion and sage with Sicilian aubergines, topped with truffle soy cream and served with vegetables.

It oozed indulgently as you cut through with a rich, creamy taste and texture that was both decadent and moreish. I cannot commend this dish enough, the moment I had finished I wanted another. Simply writing about it now has me contemplating my next visit.

For mains, sharing again due to the fear of food envy, we went for the “FED classic” of spaghetti alla carbonara (£14.95) and the capriccio pizza (£14.95).

The carbonara will hit the spot for those who continue to crave meat. Organic whole durum wheat, slow dried spaghetti pasta is cooked with smoked tofu, turmeric and soy cream, topped with crispy seitan chunks.

Seitan, made from wheat, has taken off in the vegan world in recent months as the consistency and taste is astonishingly akin to whichever meat it is prepared in likeness to.

The pizza was almost as incredible as the mushroom starter. Served on black dough, also with the choice of white and green available, was a base of creamy butternut squash. It is lavishly adorned with shiitake mushrooms, artichokes, taggiasche olives and confit cherry tomato, topped with their homemade cashew mozzarella cheese.

Seemingly simple, the butternut base was incredibly delicious and I will be sad to return to a traditional tomato.

We struggled to choose the sweet on which to finish. While I was torn between the chocolate mousse (£6.90) and the raw fruit cheese fake (£6.90), my partner mulled over the chocolate pizza (£7.90) and the raw carrot cake (£5.90).

We both went for the latter of the two. The raw carrot cake is innovative and sweet, but if you’re after something a little indulgent then this isn’t for you, it lies at the healthy end of the dessert spectrum.

The cheese fake, however, was creamy and sweet from the berries. It is not the first vegan cheesecake I have had, but it is the best. Made from cashew milk, others have simply been to nutty and so lacking the sumptuous sweet and softness I look for. Fed by Water, once again, hit the nail on the head with their offering.

The restaurant, intimate, and welcoming, is a place I see myself returning to time and time again until I have tried everything on the menu twice over and, after receiving a warm hello and goodbye from the restaurant director, Fabio, I can see it starting to feel like home.

Details: fedbywater.co.uk