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Founded by Ella Mills, Deliciously Ella is a plant-based food platform that initially started out as a recipe website. Mills now launched her first vegan restaurant in London under this label.
Started by food blogger Ella Mills, Deliciously Ella offers plant-based recipes. It presently has seven lines of food products in 7,000 stores across the U.K. Apart from this, Mills released around six cookbooks and a podcast.
Deliciously Ella
In 2011, Mills was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome, Ehlers-danlos, and mast cell activation disorder, which affects the autonomic nervous system. She wasn’t able to control her heart rate, experienced digestive issues, and several infections. Even though she tried various kinds of medication, nothing really worked. She did some research and decided to change her diet and lifestyle habits.
Discovering a plant-based diet, Mills had to learn recipes from scratch and in doing so she started Deliciously Ella in 2012 to share with others, especially those eating vegan to control diseases like hers.
Receiving tremendous success with her website, she decided to start the Deliciously Ella app consisting of recipes, workout videos, and wellness tips. At one point, the app was ranked #1 in the food & drink category on the U.K. app store. She then went on to publish her first cookbook in January 2015.
After meeting her now-husband, Matt, the duo set up their first venture—a cafe in London.
In an Instagram post, she wrote: “Within weeks of dating, Matt and I started talking about working together. Matt took a leap of faith, quitting his job to become the CEO of deliciously ella, and we began to turn my recipe website and cookbook into a proper family business. When we first starting thinking about what we could do, our dream was to open a restaurant. At the time, central London restaurant rents were too expensive for us, so we opened a small deli instead.”
To make plant-based food accessible to people, they launched a line of food products. These contain breakfast cereals, oat bars, caramel cups, chocolate bars, nut butter balls, and frozen desserts. These products are available to buy at Waitrose, Starbucks, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Holland and Barrett, and others across the U.K.
‘Plants by de’
During the pandemic, Mills’ deli was closed for over a year. This got her thinking about how she could convert this space into a restaurant, called Plants by de, just off London’s Bond Street.
Mills wrote that the deli on Weighhouse Street had been a home for them. However, they had always been looking to provide a restaurant experience.
“We’ve been closed for most of the last fifteen months and have spent a lot of that time reflecting on how we could make that initial dream a reality. In that reflection, and due to a change in planning rules, we decided to take a leap of faith and turn the deli into a restaurant, with a huge kitchen, a brand new menu, table service, outdoor seating and plant-based cocktails. Pouring so many resources into this in the midst of a pandemic has been daunting in many ways, but as we get closer to opening, the excitement is really building. So today, let me introduce you to ‘Plants by de’, our home of plant-based food; and a place to showcase how innovative and delicious plant-based food can be.”
We decided to take a leap of faith and turn the deli into a restaurant. Let me introduce you to ‘Plants by de’, our home of plant-based food; and a place to showcase how innovative and delicious plant-based food can be
Ella Mills, founder of Deliciously Ella and Plants by de
‘Plants by de’ menu
The menu at the restaurant has small plates and mains. Offerings include asparagus ceviche, baked celeriac carpaccio, and vegan scallops made with king oyster mushrooms.
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Larger mains include cauliflower schnitzel and wild nettle risotto. There is a special breakfast menu, which offers diners blueberry pancakes, oat milk porridge, scrambled tofu rancheros, among other dishes.
Prices of small plates range from GBP£6-£13 (approx. US$8-$17) and larger plates cost anywhere between GBP£13-£16 (approx. US$17-$22).
Read: Where To Eat (Plants): New Vegan Restaurant Openings, Menus and Food News
Lead image courtesy of Deliciously Ella.
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