Pepe Nero Pizza and Perfect Vino Tinto

I really wish I had better photos of this fabulous food and wine evening we had on a recent short trip to Bristol. However eating was on my mind a lot more than photographing was! Let's just say the photos don't do justice to the delights that were on offer.

It was Phil's birthday and what better way of celebrating it for two vegan foodies than to, well eat and search out food!  We started by zooming up the M5 to the Wholefoods Market at Cheltenham.  If you love health food stores then the sheer size of this one will 'scramble your tofu'! Admittedly the UK Wholefoods Markets are not as amazing as the ones where we have spent many an hour in California, but on a wet UK afternoon in February it is still good enough to absorb an interesting couple of hours.

It was then back down to Bristol to find our cosy B and B. Now the original idea for Phil's birthday night meal was to go to his favourite South Indian delight called Krishna's Inn.  However, when I mentioned I had heard of a pizza place called Pepe Nero that offered an array of vegan and organic pizza and other Italian offerings and they delivered, our B and B suddenly became even cosier!

The first task was what to choose from their menu.  Obviously pizza was 'going to happen' but hey where do you begin when there are 9 different vegan choices with toppings ranging from marjoram sausage, mozzarella, Edam, chorizo, spicy oil, tofu grilled sausage, bacon rashers, ham, olives, and even smoked salmon, along with the usual array of pizza style vegetables?  In the end we settled on the Vegan Fest one that pretty much crammed in as much as we could without making us feel even greedier by choosing additional toppings.  

So the pizza was sorted but what else?  In the end we settled on a vegan lasagne and a side of chips.  We rang up and placed our order before tackling the next task; opening a bottle of wine.  This however was no ordinary vino tinto; this was Mongolian wine (yes I actually did say Mongolian!).  We'd picked it up at Wholefoods Market and must admit that we would normally have gone for a French variety but were intrigued, so we took a punt and it paid off. This Hansen Cabernet-Gernischt was a fruity, tasty surprise that shows to be adventurous once in a while certainly pays off.  We have since found out it is available from Vintage Roots so pay them a visit to find out more about this unusual wine. 

We were sat there savouring this wine enhanced moment of discovery and just when we thought it couldn't get any better, the food arrived.  It looked so amazing we had tucked in good and proper before I had even thought of taking a quick shot.  The pizza was amazing, the lasagne difficult to stop eating and the chips were a rosemary enhanced delight.  Very soon there was nothing left.

In fact it was all so good, we ordered the same thing the very next evening.  How naughtily delicious!

If you want the same lovely experience, take a look at the vegan pizza menu here - 
http://www.pepenerorganic.com/menu/pepenerorganic_pizza/vegan/ and explore the rest of their site from there but we take no responsibility for the salivating or tummy rumbling it will induce.

PepeNerorganic 
22 Bond Street 
Bristol 
BS1 3LU
Telephone: 0117 926 8057

Enjoy!