Five clouds in veggie heaven

It's Vegetarian Week, so put down your steak knife and enjoy some tasty - and healthy - meat alternatives at one of our five favourite veggie restaurants. It's not all beans and lentils, as you'll soon discover.

Chai Pani
64 Seymour Street, W1 (020 7258 2000) £20.

I don't think I've had quite such a profoundly vegetarian meal as at this charming restaurant promising to be the first to offer the regal cooking of the Marwaris, the merchant community of the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. The Marwaris seem perfectly content with lentils, potatoes and wheat flour in myriad combinations, plus a few other vegetables. Lunchtime thalis are appropriately cheap.

Pied à Terre
34 Charlotte Street, W1 (020 7636 1178) £70.

Order the £50 eight-course Vegetarian Tasting menu this week and a complimentary apéritif is offered. There are inventive dishes, eg gaspacho consommé with aubergine caviar and frozen black olive oil; English asparagus with creamed morels and Parmesan foam; sautéed spˆtzle with baby artichokes, new-season garlic and pine nut emulsion; mango rice pudding, pineapple and mango sorbet.

The Gate
51 Queen Caroline Street, W1 (020 8748 6932) £32.

Located in what was once Sir Frank Brangwyn's studio, there is a fitting whiff of a William Morris-inspired Utopia of a meatless socialist democratic society. There is also an attractive courtyard. The chefs show an openminded approach to gastronomic influences so you could roam two continents in a meal of, say, risotto followed by cashew nut korma.

Roussillon
16 St Barnabas Street, SW1 (020 7730 5550) £65.

French chef Alexis Gauthier offers a vegetarian option in all the courses of his setprice menus, starting at £30 for the threecourse lunch. This makes Roussillon ideal for a meal of mixed faiths. The cooking is subtle and seasonal; now would be a very good time to make the most of new-born peas, broad beans, asparagus, artichokes and so on.

Woodlands
12-14 Chiswick High Road, W4 (020 8994 9333) £26.

A new branch in this chain with outlets in India and Singapore, Chiswick Woodlands has the interior-design edge over Panton Street and Wembley. The speciality is south-Indian food with the attendant dosas, iddlis, uthappams and sambars that can be so delicious and diverting both to the uninitiated and the devotee.