Calling Vegetarian and Vegan Culinary Adventurers

It’s Time to Travel and Enjoy your Choice of Delectable Meals!
Travel opens doors to discovering new cultures and lifestyles and there’s no better way to become immersed in a destination than through an area’s gastronomy. Learn about a country, a place, its people and their way of life through the cuisine and the flavors unique to that region. Eating deliciously and well for vegan and vegetarian travelers has its challenges, but more and more travel companies, restaurants and accommodation providers are recognizing the need to cater for special diets, and to do it in the best lip-smacking tradition they have dedicated to other menus.
Here are a few travel outfitters, lodges and hotels from around the world offering savory options that will delight vegan and vegetarian travelers.
Travel Outfitters And Tour Providers
On Foot Holidays in Italy and Greece
UK-based travel specialist On Foot Holidays www.onfootholidays.co.uk
just announced several vegan-friendly routes offering imaginative and creative vegan and vegetarian dishes that reflect the local authentic cuisine. Hotels and inns along the route can provide flavorful and varied vegan dishes or recommend where there are good vegan restaurants close by. All property hosts can also offer suitable alternatives for vegetarians, gluten-free and lactose-free diets.

In Italy’s Ligurian Hills, On Foot Holidays’ route adviser has secured a varied and inspired diet along the route, although strict vegans will need to miss out a night in Varzi. Some highlighted vegan dishes include grilled tofu flavored with turmeric on chick pea cream, rustic aubergines (eggplant) stuffed with spinach and mixed vegetables, almond and strawberry pie and more.
Vegetarians can enjoy baked crepes with ricotta, spinach and grated parmesan, four cheese pie with vegetables, summer tiramisu with strawberries and more. All properties have gluten-free bread, biscuits, croissants, crackers, breadcrumbs and cereals. For lactose-free travelers, they also have lactose-free milk, cream, yogurt and cheese. All properties also offer vegan wine, soya, rice or almond-based milk, soya butter, margarine, soya yogurt and soya cream. Another vegan-friendly route offered by On Foot Holidays is on the Greek island of Andros.

Duma Explorer in Tanzania
Preparing for the climb of your life? Duma Explorer, www.dumaexplorer.com, has been leading safaris and treks in Tanzania since 2004. As one of Tanzania’s only Travelife-certified tour operators and a founding partner of Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project, Duma Explorer continually demonstrates their commitment to social, economic and environmental sustainability.

For all of their Kilimanjaro treks, Duma Explorer’s “Mountain Menu” includes breakfasts, lunches and dinners during the trek that can be tailored for vegetarians and gluten-free and lactose-free travelers. The vegetarian sample menu includes hot vegetable, carrot or cucumber soup with bread, fresh cucumber, tomato and carrot salad, vegetable quiche with mixed salad and fried potatoes, rice with eggplant sauce, a side of vegetables and avocado salad, spaghetti with carrot and pea sauce, a side of spinach and cucumber salad, African pancake with honey, seasonal fruits, fried bananas topped with chocolate, and caramel custard.

Travelers can request the Tanzanian menu which feature hot banana, pumpkin or peanut soup with bread, Ndizi Nyama (cooked bananas mixed with vegetables), Maharage Nazi (beans cooked in a coconut sauce), Kachumbari (Cucumber, tomato and carrot salad), Viazi Mboga (potatoes topped with a vegetable coconut sauce) and Tanzanian pancake topped with honey.
Eat Like a Local, Mexico City Food Safaris
For a deeper look at authentic Mexican cuisine, take a tour through Mexico City’s secret food stalls, cutting-edge restaurants and street food scene with Eat Like a Local, Mexico City Food Safaris, www.eatlikealocal.com.mx. Born and raised in Mexico City, founder Rocio Vazquez Landeta accesses Mexico City’s dynamic food landscape that could only be experienced through the eyes of a local.
The four-and-a-half hour Mexico City Foodie Immersion tour can be catered to vegan travelers while exploring the best in street food, visiting traditional markets, sampling a candy tasting, sharing a home-cooked meal and ending with cocktails at a hipster lounge. Some vegan dishes include potatoes sweaty tacos, cactus pad taco, avocado taco, huarache (corn masa stuffed with beans topped with salsa) and fried onions, jícama candy, fruit tasting (more than 10 different kinds), grilled corn with lime and chili powder, squash blossom quesadillas, daba beans tlacoyo topped with huitlacoche (the fungus that grows in corn), fresh pressed pineapple juice, and vegan peanut butter cookies.

Vegetarians may also join the three-and-a-half-hour night tour Street Food at Night and Hidden Neighborhoods to sample street corn, Oaxaca cheese torta, beans tamal, quelites quesadilla, cheese enmolada, tepache (fermented pineapple juice) tejate (corn, chocolate and cinnamon drink) and chilacayota (squash sweet juice), Chile relleno taco, and churro stuffed with caramel.
Lodges and Hotels
Chaka Camps in Tanzania
Located in Tanzania’s best wildlife destinations, Chaka Camps, www.chakacamps.com, is a collection of boutique tented lodges offering the ultimate safari experience in comfort and style. Its original property, Chaka Mobile Camp recently completed an extensive renovation in December 2018 and follows the wildebeest migration across the Serengeti. Kiota Camp, permanently located in Central Serengeti, combines year-round game viewing with sweeping views over the Serengeti plains.

Opened in June 2017, Kichuguu Camp, located inside Tarangire National Park, features gourmet Swahili cuisine and warm Tanzanian hospitality. Chef Simba at Kiota Camp at Chaka Camps can prepare a delicious five-day vegetarian lunch menu consisting of the following dishes: mixed vegetables and white beans samosas served with lemon wedge and shamba side salad, rolled spinach and chickpeas lasagna served with careen spring salad, chick peas spinach salad served with cous, squash and backed beans pasta salad served with avocadoes, kidney beans salad served with risotto balls and zucchini spinach balls served with pineapple rice salad.
For dinner, guests will enjoy thai vegetable curry on a bed of coconut rice, cabbage rolls served with quinoa salad, Mama Linda’s hot pot which includes Swahili coconut beans, Chapattis’ creamed spinach, palau, sweet potatoes, Kachumbari salad, homemade pilipili, coconut curry served with fried rice.

The Marlborough Lodge in New Zealand
The team of chefs at The Marlborough Lodge, www.themarlboroughlodge.co.nz, showcase some of New Zealand’s best produce in their à la carte restaurant with a wine list featuring an evolving selection of local Marlborough, New Zealand and international wines. A new berry enclosure recently built on the 16-acre property includes raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and gooseberries and the expanded vegetable gardens all provide produce for the Harvest Restaurant located in the lodge.

The luxury boutique lodge with just 10 suites can accommodate special diets and guests’ preferences including vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free and lactose-free. The team of chefs recently prepared a special vegan menu featuring warmed marinated locally-grown olive gazpacho, followed by choice of Kumara (sweet potato) chickpea and hazelnut tart with spinach veganase (vegetable mayonnaise).
Another vegan menu called “An Affair with Auburgence” features a half eggplant filled with rosemary and olive oil and brushed with basil pesto finished with ratatouille spread over the surface and toasted almonds. For dessert, guests may enjoy a decadent chocolate coconut mousse topped with cacas nibs, toasted macadamia nuts and fresh raspberries. Harvest Restaurant carries several organic wines which are from the Marlborough area.

Hotel Massimo D’Azeglio in Rome, Italy
Within walking distance from historic landmarks including the Colosseum, Opera House, Forum, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps, Bettoja Hotels Collection, https://www.bettojahotels.it/en/, owns three neighboring hotels located in the heart of Rome. In 1875 Maurizio Bettoja, passionate about wines, good food and hotels, opened a restaurant just above his wine cellar which today offers a unique setting in the Hotel Massimo D’Azeglio, where the Ristorante Massimo D’Azeglio offers traditional cuisine from Piedmont along with international dishes.

The restaurant’s vegetarian menu features signature favorites including courgetti flowers stuffed with buffalo mozzarella and organic ricotta with cream of Jerusalem artichoke, chick pea soup with olive oil and rosemary, risotto with tomato, cumin seeds and lemon sauce, stir fried mushrooms and potatoes with garlic, parsley, sage and marjoram, cereal salad, red rice with vegetables, organic pastas and basmati rice with chick peas and rocket salad.
Vegetarian dishes signed by Umberto Vezzoli include Tuscan spelt soup with bread crust and pecorino mousse, sauteed wholemeal fusillone, courgette cream and ginger, toasted vegetable quinoa with potato mousse and grilled radicchio. Special desserts including apple pie with mascarpone cream, chocolate mousse with wasabi and raspberry cream and the Chef’s tiramisù.
No matter whether you dine in Italy, Tanzania, New Zealand or Mexico, if your mouth isn’t watering by the end of this article, we will be very surprised! If you are a dedicated vegan or vegetarian traveler, have you had serious challenges with finding healthy choices on the menu? Tell us about your creative solutions while on vacation (alison@travelwithachallenge.com).