Plant-based restaurant Holy Carrot is set to open its second London location in March, unveiling an on-site fermentation vault that turns vegetable by-products into carrot molasses cocktails and smoked carrot XO sauce. Olivia Palamountain reports

Founded as a pop-up in 2020 and now expanding from its Notting Hill flagship, Holy Carrot has quietly built a reputation for ingredient-focused plant-based cooking rooted in fire and fermentation.

The Spitalfields site, opening in March and located at the historic market, marks an exciting innovation – a dedicated fermentation room at the heart of menu development that transforms vegetable by-products including focaccia trims and peelings into ferments, pickles, miso, soy sauce and garums.

"Spitalfields feels like a natural next step for Holy Carrot," says Irina Linovich, founder. "Its strong food heritage makes it an inspiring place for us to evolve the menu while staying true to what matters most to us: good produce, solid technique, and food people genuinely want to come back for." 
Head chef Maria Criscuolo will lead the kitchen under executive head chef Daniel Watkins, offering all-day dining with fire-grilled koji flatbreads, a changing pie du jour and playful vegetable-driven plates.

A custom-made grill by British Metal Craft and a new pizza oven sit at the heart of the kitchen, with menu highlights including miso-marmite pizzetta finished with grated pecorino and fire-grilled leeks with smoked Holy Carrot hot sauce and hazelnuts."Fermentation and fire are central to how we cook at Holy Carrot – they allow us to build depth, character and a sense of play through vegetables in unexpected ways," says Daniel Watkins, executive head chef. "The new site gives us the space to push that idea further. Spitalfields is about opening the doors wider, welcoming more people in and showing just how expressive, comforting and satisfying vegetable-led cooking can be."The space has been designed in collaboration with Studio Toogood, featuring a site-specific mural by Faye Toogood depicting human figures connecting with towering vegetables – a celebration of earth as body and the body as a landscape.

"Holy Carrot makes my sort of food. There is a simple and playful quality to their approach which is a perfect pairing with Toogood," says Toogood.

All ingredients are sourced from regenerative producers including Natoora and Shrub London.