Vegan
Vegan at a French restaurant: what to ask about
Most of what determines whether a French dish works for vegans is not printed on the menu. Here is what is usually in there, and how to ask about it without an interrogation.
What catches people out
- Butter
- The defining issue. It finishes the sauce, coats the vegetables and arrives beside the bread without being ordered.
- Cream
- In gratins, in purées and in anything described as velouté, where the word itself signals enrichment.
- Egg
- Through the entire pastry section, and in mayonnaise and aïoli, which appear alongside more dishes than you would expect.
- Cooking fat for chips
- Frites are frequently cooked in vegetable oil, but duck fat and beef fat are both traditional in places, so it is worth asking.
Usually a good starting point
A Niçoise chickpea-flour pancake of flour, water, olive oil and pepper. Vegan by tradition rather than by adaptation.
Olive oil rather than butter is the point of the dish, though the finishing is still worth a question.
Raw vegetables with a dressing of oil, vinegar and mustard. Simple enough that the answer to any question is short.
What to actually say
One specific question is easier for everyone than three vague ones — for you and for the person answering.
- “C'est cuisiné au beurre? — Is this cooked in butter?”
- “Is there cream in the sauce?”
- “Are the chips cooked in vegetable oil?”
What French menus don’t print
Nobody is hiding anything. These are foundational ingredients that a French kitchen treats the way you treat salt — not an ingredient, a medium. That is exactly why they never appear in a description.
Whisked cold into sauces at the last moment, tossed through vegetables, and under the fish. It goes in after the description was written, which is why it is almost never mentioned.
Cubes of cured pork strewn over green salads, folded into quiche and gratins, and cooked into dishes whose names mention only vegetables.
The base of most brown sauces and a great many soups. Onion soup is the classic example — beef stock under bread and melted cheese.
Tapenade, pissaladière and salade niçoise, and dissolved into some Provençal sauces where it registers as savoury depth rather than fish.
Terrines, aspic, and the set desserts — mousses, bavarois and anything that holds a clean edge on the plate.
Recipes vary between restaurants and change without notice, so treat all of this as what to raise with the kitchen rather than a guarantee about any particular dish. The staff always have the final word.
TableSage reads menus using an AI language model, which gets things wrong sometimes.
Know which dishes to ask about.
Photograph the menu and it flags what is worth raising — including the ingredients that are never printed.