...enjoys "Rolls-Royce" status with "superior" dishes featuring "unexpected combinations", all brought by "friendly", "knowlegeable staff"; a few folks find it "pricey" for the type, but most are happy to pay for the "amazing adventure".

chatter of bourgeois meat-avoiders. There's a plant theme to the decor, which includes a mighty bonsai and a massive tree stencil covering an entire wall.

Dishes can often feature a bewildering number of flavours from around the world -not necessarily a bad thing. Halloumi tikka kebabs (a trendy starter that appears on the menu of at least three London veggie restaurants at the time of writing) are here presented with herby couscous dotted with sweet, crunchy pomegranate seeds. Thai green curry was a subtle version of the classic, accompanied by sharp ginger salsa and too-soft basmati. Aubergine charlotte (smoky strips of aubergine wrapped around a filling of wild mushroom and mild goat's cheese custard) was the strongest dish of the evening. Desserts are equally tempting, spanning lavender-infused crème brûlée to a subtle pineapple and chilli crumble surrounded by delicate crème anglaise. Deservedly busy, the Gate is suitable for lively lunches and candlelit dinners, whether with friends or a date

when staff come round with gem-coloured candles for each table. All our food was brimming with interesting textures, tastes and touches.

A courgette flower stuffed with sweet potato and pine nuts had been coated in a fragile, crispy beer batter and was complemented by a silky lemon aïoli. Sweet, crunchy, thai salad was a riot of green mango, paw-paw, mouli, baby corn and crushed peanuts. Root vegetable rotolo featured a variety of seasonal veg, each retaining its distinctiveness. The show-stealer, however, was an artfully presented aubergine balanced vertically and stuffed with okra soldiers; it came with a guacamole and chipotle salsa that didn't scrimp on the heat or garlic. To follow, hazelnut crème brûlée was too cloying, and more praline than crème. Staff are attentive. The smart-casual customers, from silver foxes to young sophisticates, filled the Gate to near capacity - not bad for a Monday night.

brother Michael, founded the Gate vegetarian restaurant in London. We peer into tree bark looking for the distinctive fungus. "One of the things I miss, being a vegetarian," Adrian says, "is chicken tandoori, and this fungus has a distinctly chicken taste. It's only an occasional find, but is well worth the effort."

The Daniel brothers are a dying breed of culinary hunter-gatherer. In an era when bastardised world cuisine is available on every corner and supermarkets make bland the most pungent of spices, there are still individuals who devote their lives to finding original foodstuffs; modern-day Marco Polos devoted to discovering exotic tastes and rare foods. It was Edward IV who first recognised these swaggering gallants during his 15th-century reign when he created the Association of Merchant Venturers. Elizabeth I was a fan: Sir WaIter Raleigh was one of her favourites, bringing back potatoes and tobacco from his New World excursions.

"My first improvised meal was when I was working on a farm in Israel," Adrian says. The shops were closed for the weekend so he created something from vine leaves, mint and other "found" food, surprising the farmer on his return. He doesn't make me walk blindfolded; as some would, but I am sworn to secrecy when we find a gnarled, dead oak sprouting ugly fungus. "This will be a special tonight," Adrian says, deftly cutting handfuls of the golden-yellow fungus, with its delicate peachy folds, and placing them carefully in a wicker basket. "These are impossible to cultivate. Our customers look forwards to this sort of thing, but they have to be flexible - you can never tell what you will find."

He spies some elderflowers in a hedgerow and wades through the nettles ("the blue nettle flowers are good in salads") to cut more goodies for his basket. We leave some edible-looking mushrooms under the tree - "No, you can't eat those" - then continue walking in a vain search for wild garlic.

Back at the restaurant, Adrian has barely put his basket down before his brother has his nose in it. The chicken-of-the-woods is proudly displayed, then pan-fried. It certainly tastes like chicken. "That'll fool a few people this evening," says Michael mischievously.

Mark Leatham is the Indiana Jones of the dried vegetable. He is well aware of his culinary ancestry - even evoking its spirit in the company name, Merchant Gourmet. "We had a Spanish cook who would create dishes from whatever I shot as a child - rabbits, pigeons, anything. I discovered that finding my own food was fun." Teenage years spent in Greece made him realise that Mediterranean food could be a delight.

After time in the Army, Leatham, by then selling surplus game to restaurateurs including Albert Roux, went to France and discovered a man in the Camargue who grew a new form of red rice. "But the way it was packaged made it look like birdseed," he says. Leatham repackaged it, and the rice is still a bestseller. He then began sourcing and importing sun-dried vegetables.

Leatham's voyages of discovery have taken him around the world. He never knows what he will find. ''I'll often look for one thing but find something else," he says. Once, while visiting Austria to hear the mating call of the Capercaillie grouse, he was served a dish with a dressing he had never tasted before. He liked the roast pumpkinseed oil so much he now imports it as part of a range.

He is often given strange foods to see if he will eat them. "I didn't much enjoy the live raw snail," he says, "and I didn't try the snake wine ... "
As the founder of Bigham's Global Gastronomy, Charlie Bigham has been influenced by cooking techniques he saw on his wanderings after leaving a "sensible" job to travel the world in a van.

"When I was working in the City, I detested convenience food - all those nasty microwave pre- cooked dishes full of additives," he says. "While I was travelling through India, I would stop by the roadside and have a wonderful meal cooked in a single pan, using fresh ingredients, which was ready to eat in a few minutes."

Inspired, Bigham returned to the UK and began experimenting with dishes that could be cooked at home using the single-pan techniques he witnessed. He came up with a series of ready-marinated meats, prepared vegetables and sauces, which could be prepared in the same time that it would take to reheat a takeaway. Harvey Nichols, Waitrose and Selfridges now stock his ranges.

Travel remains a big part of Bigham's life. "I had a fantastic dish at a traditional restaurant in Isfahan in central Iran, chicken with ground walnuts and pomegranate molasses," he says. "I wouldn't have stumbled upon that if I'd just been on the phone to a supplier."

staples are present, but here they're invented anew through the judicious choice of ingredients:

pancakes are layered with spiced tomato & aubergine curry & served with mango chutney, raita & roasted okra; risotto might be flavoured with pea & mint; soups change daily. Textures are cleverly contrasted, while dishes erupt with vibrant tastes. With a succinct wine list adding to the 'excellent food & drink' & staff who are 'knowledgeable', many diners leave convinced that this is 'the best vegetarian restaurant I have been to'.

although I would have been more than satisfied with, say, Glenn Close. Or Eric Clapton, Woody Harrelson, Stella McCartney, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow - or indeed any of the celebrities who frequent this tasty little slice of Hammersmith in west London.

Yes, Hammersmith. I know it sounds about as tasty as a knuckle sandwich, but believe me, it's all happening just a falafel's throw from the A4 flyover. So what's the big draw? Why do Gwynnie and co continue to descend on a pocket of London that is 90 per cent roundabout to 10 per cent Argos, home to the most congested road in the capital? In a word, vegetables.

Really delicious vegetables: baba ghanoush; pickled okra; deep-fried courgette flowers. And that's just for starters. Next up, it's all butternut squash and thyme gnocchi, teriyaki aubergine, and tarts of trompette and leek.

The Gate restaurant, an unassuming little place almost lost in a residential side-street, has dragged the British vegetable kicking and screaming out of its natural habitat, the unforgiving saucepan of boiling water. It has placed it tenderly on a chopping board, introduced it to chillies and galangal, miso and tamarind and served it, with passion and panache, to a growing band of fans (Apple Paltrow-Martin's first appearance was at the Gate - at Stella McCartney's birthday lunch).

Adrian and Michael Daniel, the Indo-Iraqi brothers behind the Gate, have been perfecting such elegant dishes for well over a decade, maintaining a tireless crusade against waterlogged vegetables. Adrian, the chef of the pair (Michael's the money man), didn't have much time for vegetables himself until he tasted a cauliflower dish cooked in a tandoor oven in India. 'It was a revelation,' he says. 'I realised it wasn't vegetables I disliked, but the way they were cooked - their wetness. I realised that water destroys everything.' He has a point. Why, after all, would anyone choose to boil a leek or a courgette - two vegetables which absorb water like nappies and come to the plate weeping, as if mourning their lost vitality?

Instead, the Daniels have turned vegetables into chic little explosions of taste. At the Gate, vegetables pick up their skirts and go glam, with a nod to the flavours of Asia and the Middle East. There's not so much as a backward glance to the clarty mouth-killers that once passed for vegetarian fodder - those Birkenstock casseroles and forlorn Quorn patties, the inevitable ratatouille, the virtuous wholefood beanburger.

I always used to feel sorry for the veggies at the table, lumbered with a wodge of nut-roast or a sorry sausage fashioned from sage'n'breadcrumbs, doing its level best to pass for a proper pork banger, as if imitating meat was the very zenith of a vegetable's short life. 'Whenever you go to friends for supper, it's always sodding salmon,' sighs my great friend P, an ethical vegetarian who is so hacked off with her lot that she very occasionally finds herself poking around in other people's fridges, slipping forbidden slivers of Parma ham into a guilty mouth.

But now - P will be thrilled - vegetarian cuisine is fast becoming the most fashionable food around. Look at Terre à Terre in Brighton, with its kibbis and rostis. Even committed carnivores such as Paul Whitehouse have discovered that vegetarian food can be stuffed with flavour: 'I didn't even feel the need to bring my own meat,' he says of his regular visits to the Gate, 'It's fantastic, I've eaten there loads of times.'

Needless to say, he wasn't in when I visited with my crazily slim girlfriend Arugula, a meat-lover who was delighted when her courgette flowers stuffed with pea and mint arrived: 'They look just like lamb chops!' she said with relish, jabbing them with her knife. The courgettes were inspired - just the right balance of crunch and goo. Our risotto of asparagus and broad bean was similarly uplifting, with none of the cloying weight that so often kills a risotto after two forkfuls.

While the restaurant itself has the feel of a village church hall, the little courtyard on a summer's lunchtime certainly has a whiff of decadence about it, if you can momentarily disassociate yourself from the traffic soup thickening up outside. You can see why the McCartneys, who won't eat anything with a face, make their pilgrimages here. And now, they'll be able to avoid Hammersmith altogether and concoct the Gate's recipes in the comfort of their own condos. The Daniel brothers have brought out a book detailing their imaginative recipes, complete with store-cupboard suggestions (you'll be needing pickled lemons, mark my words). Arugula has already perfected their aubergine caviar, which she serves with grilled goat's cheese and the merest hint that it's a great favourite with Madonna.

Tucked away behind one of my favorite music venues, the Labatts Apollo, you will find the large converted loft space that is The Gate. As soon as you walk in, you feel at ease. There's nothing stuffy about this place. It has a relaxed atmosphere, with sunny yellow walls and bold, retro, monochrome paintings.

While looking at the menu, we enjoyed a half bottle of Comte De Robart Cuvee De Reserve Champagne at £16. It had a fresh palate and a good fizz, but wasn't quite chilled enough. The wine list isn't overwhelming; we opted for the house Organic Bianco Italina at £10, which proved a good choice.

An exciting, creative menu had much to tempt. Wild mushroom rotolo was inspirational - with butternut, goat's cheese and oyster mushrooms wrapped in thyme-infused potato and served with perfectly cooked broccoli and a white-wine-and-cream reduced sauce.

To overcome any menu dilemma, a good tip is to try the meze, giving a taste of everything. We devoured the lot, the highlights being semolina gnocchi Iilled with cherry tomatoes and dolcelatte. These were melt-in-the-mouth. Feta cheese and couscous fritters came rolled with crushed pistachios and served with rocket and red and green harissa. The Japanese roll was fresh, crisp and tasty, while the halloumi, char-grilled in a tikka marinade and served on a skewer with vegetables and a chick-pea salsa had a chilli kick that rocked.

I should mention that every ... are a good mix of most age groups - all seemingly relaxed, casual and confident foodies. Anyone and everyone comes here. I have brought reluctant meat lovers and they have left feeling surprised and inspired - enough to make them eat here again and again. Service is always friendly and helpful.

We felt it our duty to order the chocolate, prune and Armagnac fondant with Chantilly cream. This was a real taste sensation, despite our already bulging waistlines. The cappuccino creme brulee had that perfect balance of coffee and cream; it was smooth and stylish - one of the best I have tasted.

I came away with a new stash of ideas to try out myself in the kitchen - for example, tortillas filled with beetroot and feta cheese served with guacamole. Okay, so maybe the decor could do with updating, but did we care? Not for a second. It's good food that counts and that's what The Gate delivers. I will be back.