The Rising Popularity of Eco-Vegan Hotels
Just like restaurants and shops, hotels and guest houses are beginning to accommodate for people who eat plant-based food, as if not they are going to be left behind. Yorkshire’s Beck Hall has recently turned vegan, where guests can tuck into a full English breakfast, overlooking the limestone and rolling hills, or enjoy breakfast in one of the 20 beautiful rooms that overlook streams.
For lunch, it serves a ‘steak’ onion gravy baguette, or the traditional roast dinner, with vegan Yorkshire puddings. Afternoon tea is served with homemade scones, jam and cashew creams. Or pop to the bar for an draught vegan beer.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (if you have visiting dogs, know that many ‘human foods’ are unsafe near animal friends).
Not just chocolate, but also garlic, onion, spices, citrus, mushrooms, nuts and many other enticing foods. It’s best to avoid using the sweetener xylitol, as even a few dropped crumbs can be lethal.
Come evenings, Beck Hall’s menu goes nuclear! There’s a plant-based ‘beef burger’ with wholegrain mustard mayo, sauerkraut and tomato with fries. Or a ‘vegan steak’ with chunky chips, roast tomato, grilled mushrooms, onion rings & peppercorn sauce?
Or for lighter bites, try the plant-based shrimp with cucumber salad. Saving room for sticky toffee pudding and butterscotch sauce, or a vegan lemon cheesecake.
This hotel is not just ‘dog-tolerant’ but dog-friendly. The owners rescued their own dog from Battersea. They try to allocate rooms close to outdoors, for easy access to the garden. Malham Cove is just 10 minutes away.
The hotel was bought by a couple hailing respectively from Yorkshire and Lancashire (no ‘war of the roses’ here!) They left behind former high-flying careers to create good food, due to having taken a plant-based Cordon Bleu course.
They renovated the historic building, installed smart heating/hot water systems and fund tree-planting (almost 5000 so far) to offset carbon emissions of employees, who receive a Living Wage.
Other Successful Plant-Based Hotels
London Hilton’s Bompas & Parr has designed a ‘vegan hotel suite’ with fruit leather headboards and scatter cushions and key-cards made from Piñatex (waste from the pineapple industry). All the pillows are stuffed with organic buckwheat or millet (and carpets wool-free).
Hempsall Farm Luxury Glamping (Cambridgeshire) offers safari tents that sleep up to six, with kitchens equipped to whip up quick meals, or cook meals on the open fire. The tents have luxury hot showers with flushing toilets to escape the ‘horrors of traditional camping!’
The land used to be a farm, but has since been bought by vegans, so now it’s a animal sanctuary!
Stonewater House is situated on the Isle of Arran, a stunning place with mountains and beaches. This hotel (unfortunately they cannot accept animal friends) offers a breakfast of homemade vegan haggis with whisky cream sauce, with maple tofu ‘bacon’, mushrooms, baked tomatoes and steamed spinach.
Saorsa is set within a 19th century bohemian building, at the gate of the Scottish Highlands. Proudly sponsoring a vegan rugby club, this quiet oasis (the rooms have no TVs) offers artisan homemade sourdough and a 5-course tasting menu, finishing with caramelised banana brulee.
Vegan Welcome lists hotels abroad.
In the USA, The White Pig has delighted guests at its 19th century Virginia farmhouse for years, each room named after an adorable rescued pig.
Guests can relax overlooking meadows and mature forest in ‘Walton’s country’, then enjoy a breakfast of organic waffles with fresh strawberries, blueberry pancakes with soy sausage/bacon, scrambled tofu with home-fries and coffee/juice. Baked afternoon goods are served with homemade lemonade or iced herbal tea.
VegVisits can be used alongside Airbnb (the system syncs to avoid over-booking) where owners leave recommendations of local plant-based cafes and restaurants.
Guests could also employ local tour guides to show them around (this company does not allow their guides to include viewing animals for entertainment (carriage rides, photos, zoos, aquariums, sporting events).
Help for Hotels Considering Vegan Food
Often chefs in hotels don’t cook vegan food, simply because they weren’t trained. Rather than get angry, encourage them. There are literally hundreds of plant-based recipes and books around, so whatever style of hotel or guest house you are, you won’t go short.
There are recipes everywhere, from a veggie bacon butty to gourmet fine dining cuisine. If you go beyond offering your vegan guests a plate of pasta with tomato sauce (and fruit salad for dessert), they will tell their friends and you’ll get more customers!
People sometimes assume that vegans don’t like people who eat meat. Nothing like that at all, we just get fed up of being fobbed off as not needing tasty food.
Believe it – if your hotel starts upping its game and serving the best vegan food in town (including for non-residents), the word will soon spread, both in person and online.
Thank Chefs That Serve Vegan meals
You can now even buy thank-you cards (also sold by animal charity Viva! – just 70p for a bundle of 50) to carry when you’re out and about. They say ‘I ate here, because you serve vegan food’. Just give to chefs, hotel owners and waiting staff, to know that their efforts are appreciated.
Chefs also have to offer plant-based meals anyway, to cater for allergies. And many people have been told by doctors to reduce cholesterol. As all vegan food is cholesterol-free, it’s better for their health too.
Helpful Resources for Eco-Vegan Hotels
- Helleo Soap offers guest-size olive oil soaps, free from palm oil and wrapped in recycled paper.
- Sell unsold food at reduced prices through Too Good to Go. These ‘surprise bags’ are collected to buy at good discounts and you may a little extra profit. Up to £80,000 for some hoteliers.
- Replace plastic bottled water with mains-fed water coolers.
- Switch to biodegradable cleaning & laundry products (unscented is best).
- Use biodegradable bin bags and eco toilet brush alternatives.
- Ecotricity offers business tariffs (and a green phone tariff).
- Earn up to £5,000 a year by renting out unused parking spaces with JustPark app). Also let locals use electric charging stations.
- If you have a garden, read our posts on pet-friendly gardens and wildlife-friendly gardens. Also don’t face indoor foliage to gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
