You Won’t Believe These Food Photos From London’s All-Vegan Fried Chicken Shop

The time for plant-based meats is now and we’re seeing innovations from both the old and new schools of vegan food. Beyond Meat recently introduced the Beyond Burger, a plant-based patty made from pea protein that turns from pink to brown when you cook it and has an uncanny meat-like flavor. The Impossible Burger, also known as “the burger that bleeds,” might just “change the whole game,” according to Momofuku’s David Chang. There’s also Memphis Meats, a company that is working to create “clean meat” made from animal cells in a lab. We’ve seen meat-free cold cuts from The Herbivorous Butcher in Minneapolis and Monk’s Meats, another vegan butcher whose brick-and-mortar will soon grace the streets of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

To say that all of the innovations happening in the vegan food world is exciting would be an understatement. But let’s not forget about the good ol’ classics, like seitan.

Seitan, which is made from vital wheat gluten might sound new, but it’s been a staple meat substitute in East Asian cuisine for centuries. Seitan is also what’s used to make the meat in London’s first (and only) vegan fried chicken restaurant, Temple of Seitan, which will be opening its doors to customers in January 2017. That’s plenty of time to start planning your trip to London — and believe us, after looking at the photos below, you might just want to move there.

Like the name of the restaurant suggests, the “chicken” at Temple of Seitan isn’t made from chicken at all. But these chicken nuggets could fool anyone.

Give us a bucket of these crispy tenders and suggestions for what to binge-watch in Netflix, stat.

These “chicken” strips are all that we want — no, all that we need in this life.

Everything about this sandwich is so right.

BONUS ROUND!! They also make a mean vegan mac and cheese — yes, those are veggie bacon bits on top and no, you’re not dreaming.

We know we’ll be dreaming about this food and gazing wistfully at their photos for months to come. Even if you don’t live anywhere near London, you can keep track of all the crunchy, delicious vegan fried chicken Temple of Seitan has to offer by following them on Instagram.

All image source: Temple of Seitan/Facebook