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An award-winning Newcastle bar has created an inclusive menu for its vegan visitors for NE1 Newcastle Restaurant Week.

City Tavern, on Northumberland Road, Newcastle has expanded its food offering for next week’s NE1 Newcastle Restaurant Week to create a menu of starters, mains and desserts to cater for its guests with special dietary requirements.

The menu, which includes dishes suitable for those with dairy, gluten and wheat allergies, as well as vegetarian and vegan options, is offering two courses for £10, or three for £15, during the food-filled week.

Among the vegetarian and vegan dishes featured on the specially-crafted menu are cantaloupe, strawberry, feta – which can be swapped for vegan feta – and basil salad served with balsamic dressing and a Moroccan chickpea stew main served with giant couscous and flatbread.

The state-of-the-art bar, widely recognised for its Tudor style façade, is also serving up a range of meat dishes which are also dairy, gluten and wheat free, including a gin cured salmon starter served with potato salad, mixed leaves and horse radish and a chorizo and herb stuffed chicken breast wrapped in parma ham, served on a cassoulet bed.

City Tavern owner David King said he is delighted to be introducing vegan dishes to the bar’s menu: “We already have a great variety of dishes that are vegetarian, gluten, wheat and dairy free, but we recognise that there is a huge demand for vegan dining.

“Therefore, we are now introducing vegan dishes - the first two of which feature on the restaurant week menu.

“Unfortunately, we don’t, at this time, have a vegan dessert. However, vegan customers can participate by having the two vegan courses for £10 during Restaurant Week.”

Sara Dickson, general manager at City Tavern had a vested interest in incorporating vegan dishes into the menu: “Being a vegan myself, I know how it feels to go out and have so few options to choose from – so I think it’s important for us at City Tavern to slowly build an inclusive menu for all of our visitors, and I’m excited to see the first of the results during NE1 Newcastle Restaurant Week.”

City Tavern was taken over by Mr King early in 2014 and then enjoyed a £450k refurbishment to create a state-of-the-art bar while still retaining the venue’s historic features.

Stephen Patterson, Director of Communications at NE1 Ltd added: “We’re delighted City Tavern are involved in NE1 Newcastle Restaurant Week and that they are using their culinary ‘know how’ to create exciting menus for those with special dietary requirements. As the event grows so too does the huge range of choice for Newcastle’s diners. With over 90 restaurants involved in the event, we expect it to be the best yet.”

For further information about the City Tavern, visit www.citytavern.co.uk or to see their NE1 Newcastle Restaurant Week menu, go to www.getintonewcastle.co.uk/ne1-events/restaurant-week Details of all participating restaurants can be found at the website and to follow the activities on social media, follow the #NE1RestaurantWeek on Twitter.