Vegan cuisine is popping up in two places it wasn’t present before: fine dining and fast food. Why it matters: The single biggest way an individual can reduce their carbon footprint is to eat less meat and dairy. Now, the popularisation of meatless meals could help curb meat consumption in the U.S which seemed improbable just a few years ago. What’s happening: Plant-based diets are hitting both ends of the food spectrum. High-end eateries are putting out vegan tasting menus, and fast-food operators are serving up fried vegan chicken and meatless burgers. - New York’s 3-Michelin star Eleven Madison Park made a statement when it reopened after its pandemic shutdown with a fully plant-based menu, at the same steep price of $335 per person.
- “The current food system is simply not sustainable, in so many ways,” chef Daniel Humm wrote in his re-opening letter. “It is time to redefine luxury as an experience that serves a higher purpose and maintains a genuine connection to the community.”
- And a slew of fast casual and fast-food restaurants are now serving vegan alternatives to their classics. Fuku — Momofuku’s fast food sister restaurant — has chicken-less versions of all its nuggets. Starbucks sells a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich with Impossible meat.
“The world is just really changing now,” says Doug McNish, a vegan chef and author of several vegan cookbooks. - “As more and more people adopt this way of living, you see people of affluence — whether that’s thought leaders or influencers or celebrities or entrepreneurs — becoming plant-based. And then it just spreads like wildfire.”
We’ve grown accustomed to equating luxury with expensive meats and animal products, like lobster and foie gras, but vegan chefs are out to prove that plants can be luxurious too. - “We have dishes on our menu that take a day and a half of labour to get onto the plate,” says Rich Landau, the chef behind an upscale vegan restaurant in Washington D.C. called Fancy Radish. “There is a lot of luxury in that.”
- “More people are starting to understand that food is about flavour, not flesh,” he says.
Chefs keep coming up with creative ways to replace animal products with plants. “When you manipulate vegetables right, you can apply the same fine dining cooking techniques to them as you would to meat,” McNish says. - Examples include watermelon instead of ahi tuna in sushi rolls and poke bowls, or spiced jackfruit as pulled pork.
- McNish serves up a king oyster mushroom calamari at one of his restaurants. The mushrooms are sliced thin, and the centre is punched out to resemble calamari, and then it’s deep-fried with the same flavours.
Let’s be fair, if the US can reduce meat consumption, then there is huge potential to materially swing the pendulum in the UK also. |
