Tibits Bankside, 124 Southwark Street, SE1 0SW www.tibits.ch

Following the success of its Heddon Street restaurant, Tibits has opened its second London site offering award-winning vegetarian food.

We went for dinner on a Tuesday, which happened to be vegan night. As a meat eater, I was a bit worried that I’d leave felling like I was missing something but this certainly wasn’t the case.

The concept at Tibits is simple – you take a table if you’re eating in, grab a plate and visit the Food Boat. The Food Boat is essentially an island in the middle of the restaurant that has a huge selection of different dishes that are freshly made every day in the restaurant. Once you’ve chosen your food you take it to the counter where they weigh it and you pay-per-weight.

I love this idea and I think it’s perfect for breakfast or lunch, but it seemed a little odd for dinner. However, the food made up for the unusual system.

The great thing about the system is you can happily pile your plate up with all the foods you love, and avoid’food envy’. My plate was piled high with grilled corn, tabbouleh, a sugar snap pea salad falafel, pasta and tofu salad and onion rings.

It was all delicious – packed full of different flavours and textures, and some of the best falafel I’ve ever tried, crunchy on the outside, fluffy in the middle and not holding any of the oil. 

I tried my best to try as many of the dishes as possible, but with over 40 to choose from including sweet and sour tempeh, BBQ aubergine, Bangkok peanut curry noodles and wonderfully crisp, fragrant sesame-turmeric cauliflower, it was quite a challenge.

After the savoury options, you can move round to the sweet section of the Food Boat. This was my favourite part of the boat. Panna Coco was an absolute revelation. It is essentially a Panna Cotta but made with coconut milk which made it creamy but with a slight lightness.

The cherry crumble was sticky and sweet with a crunch topping. But, the best part, was gummy bears and vanilla cream – any restaurant that lets me make that dessert choice is good in my books.

I enjoyed the food at Tibits. I’m not sure the self-serve/food boat concept works in the evening – in my opinion they should have it for lunch and breakfast and then pare back the menu for dinner.

However, I did enjoy the choice and I felt much fuller and more satisfied that I expected. Luckily for me Tibits is just around the corner from my office, so I’ll definitely be going back for lunch soon.