Having lunch with a Dragon sounds like it should be a bloodthirsty affair, but here we run into a problem. Deborah Meaden is a vegan.
The 65-year-old British entrepreneur, investor and star of Dragons’ Den is equally famed for her fiery outbursts at hapless business owners pitching for financial backing on the cult BBC TV show as she is for favouring greener, eco-friendly business ideas. In recent years, her diet has followed suit.
We meet at The Newt, a Georgian country estate reborn as a boutique hotel set in the Somerset hills. Ushered in by a waistcoated flunkey, I find her sitting in the window seat of its Botanical Rooms restaurant perusing the vegan menu.