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• Delicious and creative vegan food

Cambridge is generally not a great place to be vegan, despite being a decent sized city with a large student population, close to London with a wide range of restaurants. Curly Kale is one of very, very few options here, but I would without a doubt still go there when it popped up even somewhere like London or Brighton. The main draw is the menus! They always have a limited choice (as is typical for a pop up) but I have never had anything that was less than delicious. Rather than just going with default vegan/vegetarian choices of bean burger, pasta, curry, etc., they choose a different theme for the menu almost every time. These have included burgers, Sunday roast, and Spanish food, to name only a few (more successful ones tend to be brought back). I might've thought this approach a poor choice rather than perfecting one style of food, but I am amazed by how well they manage to do all of it! The food really does taste completely different each time while remaining consistently well prepared and delicious. One of my main gripes with a lot of vegan/vegetarian restaurants is that they try to double as or even primarily be health-focused. Even when done well, this often results in some pretty forgettable meals, and also fails to take advantage of the growing range of inventive and delicious vegan products. While a good amount of the food at Curly Kale is pretty healthy, they don't shy away from using frying, rich foods, or sugar in moderate amounts to achieve a great taste. My personal favourites have been the perfect tempeh burgers with vegetable tempura, the deep-fried cauliflower 'fried chicken' and the chocolate and cherry ice cream sundae! It is incredibly exciting and relatively unusual to see this kind of vegan cooking anywhere, and having it in Cambridge is a huge but very welcome surprise. Other big bonuses: friendly staff, great and frequent use of local produce, and usually pops up in a central location (often Novi, a bar in the town centre). The only downside I can think of is that this isn't a permanent restaurant! They are always fully booked far in advance and their only 'competition' for vegans and vegetarians would be Rainbow Cafe, which is generally mediocre and has limited vegan options. Please please please please open a permanent location!