I asked vegans what makes a date genuinely memorable. Their answers reveal something interesting about relationships too. From coffee and cake to animal sanctuaries, tastings and choosing ridiculous clothes for each other.

What makes a really good date?

I recently asked this question in the Vegan Hikers Club community and spoke with the vegan food creator Katie Todd, expecting to collect a few restaurant recommendations. I got those, and much more than I could ever expect. The list included animal sanctuaries, castles, vegan fairs, walks, games invented from scratch, trying ridiculous clothes on each other, taking photographs of particular colours, and even a water tasting.

Something became apparent.

The best dates weren't necessarily the most impressive ones. They were the ones that created opportunities to discover each other.

And that matters whether you're meeting someone for the first time or you've been together for twenty years.

So rather than another list of restaurants, here are ten vegan date ideas, and what each one might help you discover about the person sitting, walking, climbing or laughing beside you.

1. Keep the first date simple: vegan coffee + cake

Katie Todd's recommendation for a first date is refreshingly uncomplicated: coffee and cake.

In Birmingham, her choice would be Alterna, a plant-based coffee shop in the Jewellery Quarter. But the principle works anywhere.

A first date doesn't need to demonstrate how creative, sophisticated or romantic you are. Its most important job is to give two people enough space to answer a much simpler question:

Do we enjoy being together?

Coffee has another advantage: it's flexible. If you're not feeling a connection, neither person is trapped halfway through a three-course dinner. If conversation flows effortlessly, coffee can become a walk, another drink, or an entire afternoon.

And perhaps that's a useful principle for early dating: Create possibilities rather than expectations.

What to notice

Are they curious about you?

Do they ask questions and listen to the answers, or mostly wait for their turn to speak?

How do you feel around them: relaxed, interested and able to be yourself, or as though you're performing an audition?

Green flags aren't only the things someone tells you about themselves.

They're often hiding in how it feels to interact with them.

2. Go somewhere that represents your values

One Vegan Hikers Club member suggested road-tripping to an animal sanctuary and staying overnight in its glamping accommodation.

Another suggested a vegan fair.

These are particularly interesting vegan dates because the activity itself can become a conversation about something deeper.

Katie told me that one of the things she values about vegan dating is the opportunity to connect over shared values: why you're vegan, what motivates you, what inspires you, what you love about it, and even what you find difficult.

That doesn't mean two vegans automatically have compatible values. Far from it.

Ask ten vegans why they're vegan and you may hear ten different stories. But that's exactly why a values-based date can be interesting.

Don't just discover that someone shares a label with you. Discover what the label means to them.

What to notice

What do they care about?

What moves them?

Can they talk about their convictions while remaining curious about yours?

Shared values can create connection. But another green flag is being able to explore where your values differ without immediately turning those differences into a competition.

3. Let someone choose between two dates

This one came from Tina, and it's probably the smallest idea on this list. It may also be one of my favourites: One of the things she remembers about a particularly thoughtful person she dated was that he frequently offered her choices.

Coffee or chai?

When he cooked for her, he might suggest two possible dishes. The options themselves weren't important. What she remembered was what they communicated: Your preferences matter here too.

There is a lovely relationship principle hidden inside that. Planning something for another person can be caring. But deciding everything for another person isn't necessarily the same thing.

A thoughtful date can combine initiative with responsiveness.

So try planning two possibilities:

"Would you rather go for a picnic or try that vegan café?"

"Walk in the woods or explore somewhere new in town?"

You still made the effort. You simply left room for the other person inside the plan.

What to notice

How does someone respond to your preferences?

Do they seem interested in what you'd enjoy?

Can plans change without becoming a problem?

And equally importantly: are you making space for their preferences too?

4. Create a ridiculously specific tasting experience

Tina asked someone she was dating what was his favourite drink and it was...water.

So she arranged a water tasting.

It's difficult to compete with that.

But the brilliance of the date wasn't really the water.

She had listened.

Instead of reaching for a generic romantic gesture, he took a tiny piece of information about her and turned it into an experience.

You could do the same with almost anything.

Buy three unusual vegan chocolates and taste them blind. Find different varieties of strawberries. Compare oat milks. Pick unfamiliar fruits from an international supermarket. Find the best vegan croissant in your city.

Then guess which one your partner will prefer.

Suddenly, you're not just eating.

You're discovering each other.

What to notice

One of the loveliest relationship green flags is someone remembering small things you've told them.

It communicates: I was paying attention.

And that matters long after the first few dates.

If you've been together for years, ask yourself something slightly uncomfortable:

When was the last time I used something small I've learned about my partner to surprise them?

5. Play like children

Another pattern in Tina's favourite dates was playfulness.

She and her date climbed a tree.

They stood outside a shop window choosing clothes for each other.

They went into TKMaxx, picked random clothes from the racks and made each other try them on.

They even invented their own chess-like game, complete with unusual pieces and their own rules.

None of these required a romantic restaurant, an elaborate itinerary or much money.

They required something adults can become surprisingly bad at: being silly together.

Research on relationships often talks about communication, conflict and compatibility. All of those things matter.

But relationships also need joy.

Dating gives us permission to play at the beginning of a relationship. Perhaps one challenge is remembering that we're still allowed to play years later.

Try it

Go into a charity shop with £10 each and choose an outfit for the other person.

Invent a game.

Build something.

Climb something.

Draw each other's portraits terribly.

Set yourselves a completely pointless challenge.

A date doesn't always need to accomplish anything.

Sometimes the point is simply to laugh.

6. Pick a colour and go exploring

This is another of Tina's wonderfully simple ideas.

Talk about your favourite colours. Then choose one and go exploring together, photographing everything you find in that colour.

You could do the same with shapes, animals, unusual signs, street art or anything else.

The activity gives you somewhere to direct your attention while conversation happens naturally around it.

And there's a deeper relationship idea hiding here too.

Two people can walk down exactly the same street and notice completely different things.

One notices architecture.

The other notices dogs.

One spots flowers.

The other finds an absurd sign in a shop window.

Attention reveals something about us.

Part of falling in love is gradually learning how another person sees the world.

A good date gives you opportunities to look through their eyes.

7. Walk somewhere beautiful, and leave room to talk

Several suggestions involved simply going somewhere.

A National Trust property. A castle. A countryside walk.

Katie shared one of her own dates: a walk at Symonds Yat followed by dinner at a pub.

There's a reason walking makes such a good date.

You have something to experience together, but enough mental space for conversation. Silences don't necessarily feel awkward because you're both looking at the world rather than continuously looking at each other.

And unlike sitting opposite one another across a table, you're literally moving in the same direction.

For established couples, walks can also create something that's increasingly scarce in everyday life: unstructured conversation.

No television.

No chores.

No emails.

No agenda.

Just somewhere to go and someone beside you.

Try leaving part of the walk unplanned

Put the phones away.

Notice something.

Ask a question you've never asked before.

Follow an interesting path.

A memorable date doesn't always need more stimulation.

Sometimes it needs less distraction.

8. Experience something neither of you knows much about

One VHC member remembered going with a vegan date to an immersive David Attenborough projection experience.

That's a great example of another type of date: discover something together.

Visit an exhibition.

Take a pottery class.

Try bouldering.

Attend a vegan cookery workshop.

Go stargazing.

Learn a dance.

Visit somewhere neither of you has been.

Novel experiences have a useful quality in relationships: for a while, neither person is the expert.

You're both responding to something unfamiliar.

That gives you a chance to see different sides of each other.

Who gets curious?

Who laughs when things go wrong?

Who needs everything to go to plan?

Who encourages the other person?

Who becomes competitive during pottery?

Dates don't only help us learn about someone through conversation.

We learn by doing things beside them.

9. Make dinner the experience, not just the destination

Of course, this is an article about vegan dates.

We couldn't leave dinner out entirely.

Katie offered three Birmingham options depending on the stage of the relationship: something relaxed, cocktails and vegan food at BA-HA, or LAND for an intimate plant-based fine-dining experience further into a relationship or for an anniversary.

But there's another version.

Cook.

Katie's partner once made her a three-course vegan Valentine's meal.

And cooking for someone can communicate something a reservation sometimes can't: I thought about this. I prepared for you.

You can make it even more interactive.

Each person chooses one course.

Cook something from the other's childhood.

Recreate a meal from a holiday.

Pick a country randomly and veganise one of its dishes.

Or give your partner two menus and let them choose, borrowing Tina's principle of combining thoughtfulness with choice.

The relationship ingredient isn't expensive food.

It's intention.

10. Recreate one of your earliest dates

Our final date isn't really about where you go. It's about when.

If you've been together for a while, revisit somewhere from your beginning.

The café where you first met.

The route of an early walk.

The terrible restaurant you inexplicably loved.

The park bench where something important happened.

Then don't just recreate the date.

Compare the two versions of yourselves.

What do you remember about me then?

What were you nervous about?

What did you think our relationship might become?

What's something you know about me now that you couldn't possibly have known then?

What's changed about us?

Dating isn't only useful for discovering someone new. It can help us rediscover someone familiar.

And perhaps that's why dates shouldn't stop once a relationship becomes established.

Dating has different jobs at different stages

When we say "dating", we often think about the stage before a relationship.

But dates can serve very different purposes over time.

At the beginning, dates help us discover.

Who is this person? What matters to them? How do I feel around them? How do they treat me, other people and themselves?

This is also when it's worth paying attention to green and red flags. Not by turning the evening into a psychological assessment, but by staying curious about what you're experiencing.

Do they respect boundaries?

Can they tolerate a different opinion?

Are they interested in your inner world?

Do their actions match what they tell you about themselves?

How do they treat the waiter when something goes wrong?

And importantly: do you like who you are when you're with them?

Later, dating begins to perform another function.

It helps us maintain curiosity.

The danger in a long relationship isn't necessarily that we stop knowing our partner.

Sometimes it's that we become convinced we already know them completely.

We stop asking because we think we know the answer.

We stop discovering because familiarity creates the illusion that there's nothing left to discover.

But your partner isn't a finished book.

They're still having experiences you weren't there for. Forming opinions. Changing preferences. Developing fears. Discovering ambitions. Becoming someone slightly different from the person you met.

A date creates space to meet that person again.

And over many years, dating can serve yet another purpose: remembering "us".

Not the household.

Not the parenting team.

Not the shared calendar.

Not the mortgage.

The two people underneath all of it.

So what makes the ultimate date?

After collecting all these suggestions, I don't think there is one.

For Katie, food matters, but so does the opportunity to connect through values and feel understood.

For Tina, the most memorable experiences weren't conventional romantic dates at all. They were creative, playful and remarkably personal.

And the Vegan Hikers Club suggestions ranged from vegan tasting menus to castles and animal sanctuaries.

But underneath the activities, the same relationship ingredients kept appearing - and that aligns perfectly with Haven's Relationship Nutrition:

Curiosity.

What can I discover about you?

Presence.

Am I actually paying attention?

Novelty.

Can we experience something new together?

Playfulness.

Can we still be silly?

Thoughtfulness.

Can I turn something I've learned about you into something meaningful?

Shared values.

What matters to each of us, and where do those worlds meet?

Perhaps that's why the ultimate vegan date doesn't need to be expensive, elaborate or even particularly romantic.

A water tasting can apparently do the job.

Because ultimately, the activity is only the setting.

The real date is what happens between two people while they're doing it.

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This article was created with ideas generously shared by members of the Vegan Hikers Club community, including Tina, and contributions from vegan food creator Katie Todd. Thank you for helping build the list, and proving that vegan dating can involve considerably more than finding somewhere with oat milk.