The Gate Vegetarian Restaurant - Hammersmith London

The cooking at the Gate reflects the diverse cultural background in which we grew up - what one might call Indo-Iraqi Jewish. Our grandmothers blended Indian and Arabic cuisines with the traditional Jewish food. It became perfectly natural that we should apply the same principles at the restaurant. The food we serve is the food of our childhood, modulated by French and Italian influence.

When we opened the Gate, we had had no formal training and knew nothing about running a restaurant - we were just a couple of guys who knew what we liked to eat - but we knew that food was sacred and should be celebrated. At the restaurant we try and celebrate the food. This means, amongst other things, that we source our ingredients with care*; we intensify flavour by careful cooking and by combining ingredients in unexpected ways; we try to make our dishes as visually pleasing as possible; and we try and do this in a fun and relaxed way.

The menu at the Gate changes monthly to reflect the seasons, but it will always have a couple of signature dishes. First-time visitors should ask a member of staff for their recommendations.

We have a few Food Fests at the restaurant during the year. The Wild Mushroom Fest is our most popular one and runs for three nights in October. We pick most of the mushrooms ourselves because one simply cannot get the sort of mushrooms we serve from suppliers. There is something terribly satisfying about foraging for 'wild' food and it's exciting to find rare and unusual edible mushrooms. The Fest is about sharing this passion - sharing the rare and the precious - with others. There are, of course, plenty of mushroom dishes on the regular menu during October if you can't make the Fest, and if you're not about in October, then there's the Wild Food Feast in spring.

We have received numerous citations of excellence from various bodies and been nominated for several food awards over the years, winning Timeout's 'Best Vegetarian Meal' award in 1992.

* We source our ingredients with care, using only the freshest produce and organic where possible including free range eggs. We always have a selection of vegan dishes or vegan options. The wine menu offers a selection of organic, vegan and vegetarian wines. We also try to be aware of our carbon footprint and try reducing it by recycling our waste and buying where possible from companies that are carbon offsetting.