You know the menu.

Twenty mains.

Three grills.

Four burgers.

Half a page of chicken.

And then, right at the bottom, one vegetarian burger looking like it has been there since 2018.

That is not a meat-free menu.

That is an afterthought.

So before the next group meal turns into one person saying, “I’ll just have chips,” run the menu through five questions.

1. Is There More Than One Main You Would Actually Want?

Not one token burger.

Not a salad somebody has promoted into a main course.

Not “we can do the pasta without the chicken”.

A decent menu should give you a choice.

A curry.

A pasta dish.

Something grilled.

Something baked.

Something you would have ordered even if nobody had told you it was vegetarian.

If the entire section can be read in three seconds, that tells you plenty.

2. Can You Order Without Conducting An Investigation?

Does the sauce contain meat stock?

Are the chips cooked separately?

Is there parmesan in that?

What exactly is in the gravy?

Nobody wants dinner to feel like cross-examination.

Good menus make things clear.

Even better restaurants have staff who can answer without disappearing into the kitchen for ten minutes.

3. Is The Vegan Choice Actually A Dish?

Taking the cheese off something does not automatically make it dinner.

Neither does removing half the ingredients and charging the same price.

A vegan option should still feel finished.

That sounds obvious.

It is surprising how often it isn’t.

4. Do They Take Allergens Seriously?

This is where “dietary preference” stops being a casual phrase.

For someone with an allergy, intolerance or coeliac disease, clear information matters.

If the menu is vague, ask.

If the answer is vague too, that is useful information.

5. Would The Meat-Eater At The Table Steal Some?

This might be the best test of all.

If the meat-free dish lands and somebody immediately says, “That actually looks better than mine,” the kitchen is doing something right.

The best vegetarian food does not look like punishment for not ordering steak.

It looks like food.

Good food.

The sort that disappears from the middle of the table whether everybody ordered it or not.

Peterborough has enough Indian, Nepalese, Middle Eastern, East Asian, Italian and other cooking traditions that nobody should be settling for the emergency side salad.

So before the next group booking, send the menu around.

Run the five questions.

You will know very quickly whether somebody has actually thought about the meat-free diner.

Or just found somewhere to put the green symbol.

What is the best meat-free dish you have had locally — the one even the meat-eaters wanted to nick?