Healthy food in Soho: where to eat well in the West End.

Soho will sell you anything at any hour, and most of it will do you no favours at all. That is exactly why the good kitchens here stand out so sharply. Within about fifteen minutes on foot you can eat vegetables cooked with more care than you will find in half the country, and you do not have to give up wine, company or a proper table to do it.

Mildreds on Lexington Street is the anchor. It has been feeding Soho global vegetarian and vegan food since 1988, long before anyone was calling it wellness. Bubala on Poland Street is entirely vegetarian and never announces the fact, because the Middle Eastern cooking is confident enough not to need the excuse. Gauthier Soho is the grand one, a Michelin-starred townhouse kitchen turned fully vegan, French technique with nothing animal in it. Vantra on Wardour Street does the opposite job and does it well: organic, largely raw, gluten-free plant-based food you can eat quickly.

Walk a few streets out and the West End keeps giving. Fallow at St James's Market is a modern British kitchen where the vegetable dishes routinely beat the protein and almost nothing is thrown away. Tendril on Princes Street is vegetable-led and seasonal. Apricity on Duke Street holds a Michelin Green Star for low-waste sourcing. Club Mexicana at Mercato Mayfair proves vegan tacos can be a genuinely good night out.

My test is the same in Soho as it is in my own kitchen: purity, wholesomeness, organic where the chef can manage it, and real quantities of fresh fruits, vegetables, pulses, grains and seeds. Plant-forward, not plant-only, so bring the meat-eaters. And nobody on this page has paid a penny to be here, because that is not for sale.