That restaurants should know parmesan isn't vegetarian?

I disagree with you and the majority of commenters. I haven't read past page 1 but this is my understanding:

Vegetarian - does not eat meat or fish. Can consume animal products, such as eggs, milk, extracts, butter, fat, and so on.

Vegan - does not eat meat, fish, or animal products. No animal fats, no honey, no eggs, and so on, or anything that is produced from an animal, such as rennet.

Obviously as human beings people are welcome to twist and change the definitions of these ideologies however they please, but traditionally vegetarians CAN consume animal products. It is vegans who CANNOT.

So I don't think what the chef has said here is wrong at all - cheese is vegetarian, even those containing rennet, as they do not contain MEAT or FISH and and just contain animal products - which vegetarians are allowed and do eat, by traditional definition.

If vegetarians can't consume animal products, what is the distinction between vegetarianism and veganism?

But when they do have supposedly ‘vegetarian’ meals on a vegetarian menu, then they should be vegetarian.
I agree.
They would not get away with claiming an item was free of sesame seeds if it wasn't.

Yes. But when they do have supposedly ‘vegetarian’ meals on a vegetarian menu, then they should be vegetarian.

@VJBR Frankly I find most vegan food unappealing and not that healthy. Two much salt is often used to give it flavour. Filo pastry with Mediterranean veg, caramelised onion and pesto sounds pretty good compared to some vegan dishes I’ve seen.

It sounds fine but it's lacking protein if you remove the cheese. I'm bored of goats' cheese (every sodding menu) but the alternative is vegan cheese.

I find many of the plant-based meat and dairy substitutes hard to digest. I'd rather not eat a meal out and then suffer.

You can get vegetarian wine (and vegan wine now I think). She might just need to check the labels carefully. Although she doesn’t sound too fussed!

My DD was amazed to discover when we were on holiday last year that wine isn’t vegetarian either. It hasn’t stopped her drinking it though.

It doesn’t seem like a very vegetarian friendly place to me. It has their vegetarian leaf symbol next to crab bruschetta?

Yep. I find it odd too.

I do eat meat but I'm lactose intolerant so I don't consume much milk although I do eat cheese.

A lot of people claim to be vegi and don't actually know what goes in to food production. I had one at a temporary workplace insist all the canteen meat was halal. They served bacon butties.

Absolutely.

If someone is vegetarian for texture or dietary reasons that is one thing, but no vegetarian can try and hold some kind of moral high ground with inferences of animal welfare concerns.

I've found on MN and another forum, the vegetarians do this a lot whereas the vegans don't tend to have moral outrage of why is this restaurant/cafe/Hotel not catering to vegan posts, yet it's vegans who get tarred with that brush elsewhere and the veggies get off scott free from the venom (admittedly, there are some extreme vegan protesters that I don't agree with, nothing can or should be forced upon people and it's aggressive and controlling to do so)

I never expect a place to HAVE to serve a vegan option. I call ahead, ask, and if they don't, I go somewhere else, no moaning, no fuss.

A small cafe opened last year on a little village green near where I live. It's run by a couple of older ladies and they said they hadn't thought of plant based alternative milks (to be fair neither did Greggs until recently) so I asked if it was OK if I took a little pot of my own PB milk in when I go for coffee and they were happy with that. When you're in the minority, you need to learn how to work around and find compromises, rather than complain online and trying to shame specific restaurants.

@Scooby2024

I've bought vegetarian Parmesan too, clearly has the V on the packaging. I'm thinking that it now is made from lab cultured rennet? We need to reach out to an Italian cheese maker for answers! It's only in the last couple of years I've seen it

But do remember that many vegetarians aren't that fussy, neither of my DDs check the cheese is veggie as they accept it's just a by product and they are eating dairy anyway. They choose not to knowingly eat meat or fish though.

As for restaurants, there's no legal requirement to serve vegetarian or vegan food, so if a restaurant doesn't bother having vegetarian dishes, go elsewhere

Real Parmesan isn't vegetarian but there's similar hard cheese that is, it's cheaper so perhaps they use that?

I think many (good) restaurants offer vegan rather than vegetarian for this reason.
Too easy to get it wrong.

It's local to me. It's no great shakes. You're much better off going to the Italian up the road.

If you do go though, id make up a sort of tapas of olives/hummus/roasted veg side dishes.

I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but I agree it makes no sense. We can see the consequences of mass vegetarianism in the 5 million stray cattle in India. Male calves taken from mothers and abandoned.

I’m vegetarian, numerous restaurants don’t know this even a well known chain of Italian restaurants!

It really doesn’t. It’s very salty and made from sheep’s milk. Do you mean Grana Padana? That tastes like Parmesan

I became a veggie in the early 80s. I remember on a school residential trip the vegetarians, instead of sausages or whatever the meat was were given one day a lump of cheddar and the next a pile of cold kidney beans from a tin including the vile juice.
Almost all veggie ready meals had those boiled to death diced carrots in them.

I've eaten rose veal from a calf at foot dairy. Then had vegetarians, who eat large amounts of dairy cheese judge me for it.

I haven't noticed any taste or texture of meat in cheeses containing rennet.

My DS also doesn't like bananas, but does in a smoothie, I get the texture thing.

Totally off the point, but there is an argument we should eat more veal.

I don’t like the taste or texture of meat.

Or bananas. But there isn’t a name for that.

Well, it could be an honest mistake, too…
I’ve managed to get to somewhere North of age 60, catered happily (I enjoy a challenge) for both Vegan and Vegetarian friends and family members over many years, and have never been advised by the Vegetarians, or, indeed, by any Vegetarian cookbook (before Internet) that they can’t eat certain cheeses. Maybe they also didn’t know?

I know vegetarians who eat cheese that contains rennet. Strict vegetarians are probably better off with vegan food or avoiding cheese when eating out.

Yeah I no this but it actually states Parmesan on the packaging. It doesn't state hard cheese. But it clearly also states it's vegetarian.