United Kingdom
The north of England is where British plant-based cooking got serious without getting precious. Manchester and Liverpool have the vegan kitchens; the Lake District has the country-house hotels and the walks that earn dinner.
- Best months
- May – Sep
- Trip length
- 6 – 8 days
- From
- $5,200 pp
- Fly into
- Manchester
Britain went vegan faster than anywhere in Europe, and it happened in the north first. Manchester’s Northern Quarter has been plant-based by default for a decade, Liverpool followed with a Georgian quarter full of small kitchens, and the pub menus in between carry a vegan roast on Sunday as a matter of course. The Victorian civic buildings — libraries, concert halls, memorials — are the setting, and they are free to walk into.
We run it as a train trip: land in Manchester, an hour to Liverpool by rail, then two hours north to the Lakes, where a country-house hotel above a tarn does a plant-based tasting menu that would hold its own in London. No car until the last leg, and then only if you want one.
A route we like
012 nightsManchester
A hotel in a converted cotton warehouse, the Northern Quarter’s vegan cafés, the John Rylands library, and a Sunday roast that happens to be plant-based.
022 nightsLiverpool
St George’s Hall and the Picton Reading Room, the Liver Building on the waterfront, the Georgian Quarter’s small kitchens, and a ferry across the Mersey because you have to.
033 nightsThe Lake District
A country-house hotel near Grasmere, the walk round Rydal Water before breakfast, Kendal Castle on the way in, and a tasting menu grown mostly in the hotel’s own garden.
- Full English, plant-based
- Vegan Sunday roast
- Cumberland sausage, meat-free
- Sticky toffee pudding
- Grasmere gingerbread
- Oat-milk builder’s tea
The weather is the trip
It rains in the Lakes one day in two, and the light after is the reason people paint it. We book hotels with fires, mudrooms, and a good drying room.
Trains, not cars
Manchester to Liverpool is fifty minutes, Liverpool to Oxenholme two hours. We book first class on Avanti and a taxi from the station so no one drives on the wrong side.
Sunday closes early
Northern kitchens serve Sunday lunch, not Sunday dinner. We book the roast for 1 p.m. and leave the evening for the pub.
