Starting Up with Camilla Alsanea @ Vegan & Violets

February 24 looms ever closer and it is on this date that the Vegans & Violets event team will see the culmination of many months of hard work.

The team comprises of Eirin Bonnell, Ellie Neill, Vita Juneviciute, Yin Chiao Lu and last but not least, myself, Camilla Alsanea.

We are all final year students completing a four-year International Hospitality Management degree at the Oxford School of Hospitality Management. During the last year of our degree, we are required to plan and host an event of our choice.

Since September 2014, we have been painstakingly planning a one-off vegan and raw food themed event to be held at the award-winning Brookes Restaurant at Oxford Brookes University. After much deliberation, meticulous planning and research, we are now looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labour. Hour upon countless hour has gone into working out the finer details and organisation of this occasion. Together, we have discovered the real time and effort that goes into planning and hosting an informative, inspirational and enjoyable event.

Agreeing on a theme for the event was our initial hurdle and was almost as challenging as planning the event itself.

Numerous ideas were put forward, considered and duly dismissed. However, after researching the vegan restaurant market we realised that the growing number of vegans in this country are poorly catered for by our food industry and that restaurants offering food suitable for vegans are a rarity. We had identified a major gap in the market and decided that a vegan themed event would offer people a unique and rare opportunity to experience some of the delights that this cuisine has to offer.

Nobody in our Event Team is vegan, but like a growing number of people, we are all passionate about nutrition, healthy living and experimenting with new styles of food.

Armed with our newly acquired knowledge and understanding of veganism, we can now challenge some of the misleading and stereotypical ideas generally held about vegan food. While we are not trying to persuade anyone to adopt a vegan lifestyle, our research revealed that we would all benefit from gaining a better understanding of nutrition and the effect dietary choices have on our long-term health and well-being. We hope to demonstrate that the vegan diet offers many positive benefits for personal health, animal welfare and for the environment.

We will be waging war on the current intemperate climate and banishing those winter blues with our irresistible and satisfying dishes.

Brookes Restaurant prides itself on using the best of British seasonal ingredients and locally sourced produce and accordingly you will find our menu jam-packed with fresh, local, seasonal ingredients – from the delicious wild mushroom and hazelnut soup to the luscious lime cheesecake.

Before planning this event, none of the team members consciously included vegan dishes in their diet. However, we are now all determined to reduce our use of animal products.

With only 60 tickets available for the unique event, it is expected to be a sell out. As Tuesday is the new Friday, (or so we’ve been told), we warmly invite you to come and join us for an evening of culinary discovery. We guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

The Vegans & Violets event will take place on Tuesday, February 24, at 7pm at Brookes Restaurant, Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford.

Tickets are £27.50 and include a Violet & Elderflower Fizz and a four-course meal followed by tea or coffee and petit fours.

See restaurant.business.brookes.ac.uk/events/ For more information search for ‘Vegans & Violets’ on Facebook and Twitter.

TRY IT
The Vegans & Violets event will take place on Tuesday, Feb 24, at 7pm at Brookes Restaurant, Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, Tickets are £27.50