Clean Bean restaurant in Seaham wins national vegan/vegetarian roast dinner of the year award

Clean Bean in North Terrace beat stiff competition from around the country to win the Vegan/Vegetarian category of Knorr’s Great British Roast Dinner Competition, which celebrates the best places in the UK to get a Sunday lunch.

It’s the first time the annual competition has had a vegan/vegetarian category but judges, who visited the cafe in secret, say they were impressed with the service, setting and taste of Clean Bean’s nut roast which is served on Sundays, alongside its more traditional beef or chicken dinners.

Priced £10, it includes nut roast, mashed potato which can be made with or without dairy, smashed celeriac, vegetables and home-made stuffing with sage and quinoa. While the vegetarian version also includes a Yorkshire pudding, Clean Bean owners Paul and Linda Barron haven’t found a way to make a dairy-free Yorkshire pudding for the vegan version yet.

Linda, who opened the business with her husband in September 2018, said: “We didn’t even realise we’d been nominated until we got the phone call from Knorr to say that we’d been nominated by customers and that two judges had been along in secret. It means so much that our customers put us forward for this.”

Everything on the Clean Bean menu is gluten-free with options to suit people with dietary requirements such as Coeliac disease, dairy intolerance and those who prefer clean eating. So much so, they’ve been accredited by Coeliac UK.

Their approach to dining has also seen them nominated in this year’s Echo Portfolio Awards in the leisure category.

Paul said: “People travel here just for the gluten-free aspect. Eating out can be so difficult for people with Coeliac disease and it can make them ill for days if they eat something containing gluten, but they love that here they can eat anything from the menu.”

Linda said: “Because we’re gluten-free and the fact that everything can be adapted for people to meet requirements, we seem to have created a community. People love what we do and support is, which is amazing.”