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In the first round of the prestigious Trencherman’s Awards 2019, 5000 restaurant nominations were narrowed down to a shortlist, and Acorn is the only vegan eatery among them.
Acorn, a popular vegan restaurant in Bath, has been shortlisted for the Trencherman’s award for creativity and innovation. It hopes that the nomination – and potentially a win – will get more people talking about vegan fine dining.
Richard Buckley, owner of Acorn, hopes to bring his own knowledge and the techniques he has developed while working in a number of top vegetarian restaurants to the awards. He wants to increase the general standard of plant-based food across the country.
In a press release, he said: ‘[When I decided to pursue a career in food] I started studying, buying every book I could find, visiting every fine restaurant that offered a veggie option and learning, piece by piece, error by error, how to make fine food from plants. It wasn’t easy and some poor people got served some very strange food in the variety of cafes and restaurants that were foolish enough to let me cook for the public.’
He continued: ‘I worked and I studied and I cooked late into the night. I wanted to understand risotto so I cooked nothing but risotto for months, learning en route about stocks and texture and knife skills. Somewhere along the way I found my life’s passion, and piece by piece I developed a view of food and a dept of knowledge that began to reflect the vision I had in mind.’
Speaking of his current work with Acorn, he said: ‘this is where I find myself today, desperately trying to get closer to the ingredient, to the land it comes from, experimenting, learning and growing, creating a cuisine from plants that comes close to the dream I had all those years ago.’
You can vote for Acorn in the Trencherman’s Awards here. Voting closes at 9am on Friday 5th October and the winners of the Awards will be announced at the Saunton Sands Hotel, North Devon, on 19th November.
