In the days before we had our fur babies (the dogs), we would regularly spend weekends up in London. A particular favourite location was Hoxton in the east end near the city. We would book the Hoxton Hotel (when it was cheap) and hang out in all the east London ‘hipster’ haunts. The area around Hoxton, Spitalfields and Old Street is known for hi-tech start-up firms that have clustered in the area. As a result the area around Old Street roundabout has been nicknamed ‘silicon roundabout’. Wherever you find a hi-tech start-up employee hipster-type, you’re sure to find great (organic) coffee shops and more vegan eateries than you could shake a tofu kebab at! Hence it was our kind of place.

Bengaluru is actually know as India’s Silicon Valley due to its high number of hi-tech businesses. We were staying close to an area called Trinity, and it certainly felt that there were a lot of young IT professionals there, and with them the trendy coffee shops (there was even a Starbucks) and eateries. In my research for this trip, I created a vegan eating page on our planning spreadsheet. Using the internet and the very useful ‘Happy Cow’ website, I found as many potential vegan cafes and restaurants that we could eat at in the different places we could stay at as possible.

In Bengaluru I found a vegan cafe called Copper + Spice, it was quite close to where we were staying (and where Mike had found a barber for a haircut and beard trim) so we thought we’d try it for lunch. It was situated on what largely felt like a quiet residential back street. In fact, when we reached it, it could easily be missed were it not for the sign as it was behind a white painted wall and what looked like a front garden.

Inside the wall was a modest two story house that had been converted into a cafe and small collective of other trendy little stores. The cafe was 100% vegan (result!) and so we took a seat in the front garden and drooled over the menu. We chose a few small plates to share, a smoked cauliflower, beetroot humus, pea humus, sour dough bread and a peanut Asian salad. I had a watermelon juice and Mike had bottled water. 

As we waited for the food, I admired the beautiful little garden – a great example of gardening in small spaces. We also watched amusingly at the guy on the table behind us. He was on his Apple MacBook, EarPods in, on a conference call – while in a vegan organic cafe, how hipster can you get?! The food arrived and was a blaze of colour. I can confirm that it tasted as good as it looked. We devoured it, and as a bonus, when Mike went to pay the bill, he found some vegan chocolate for sale – we had found a small piece of vegan paradise in a Bengaluru backstreet, who would have thought it?!