Nouveau Vegan Cuisine

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http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-vegan23jul23.story

 

Nouveau Vegan Cuisine

By Valli Herman-Cohen, Times Staff Writer

 

 

Top chefs always have their eyes open. They know a trend when they see one.

They know when to hop on the bandwagon while there's still room. And the

latest one trundling through town carries the awareness that chefs have to

find a way to appeal to the impressively large tribe of vegans.

 

Vegans! These people - a meat-eating, dairy-slurping eater might think - are

the anithesis of the food lovers who fill the tables at top dining spots.

They hardly eat anything. Well, yes and no. In fact, that's the challenge.

 

The trick is to take the ingredients vegans do eat and bring to them the

same intensity, innovation and affection for the beautiful dish that

prevails in more conventional approaches, and in the process change dutiful

eating into joyful dining.

 

Over the last few months, a handful of Los Angeles chefs have expanded their

vegan repertoires in earnest. They have maintained their creativity and

style, even as they've eliminated many of the basic materials that define

them: butter and cream, fish and meat, even eggs and cheese.

 

It's all proof that serious vegan cooking isn't some passing fad, such as

raw food and its gimmicky imitations. (Pizza with a " living buckwheat

crust " ? Get real.)

 

At Grace on Beverly Boulevard, chef Neal Fraser has featured a vegan

appetizer, entree and dessert every night since the restaurant opened about

five months ago. He has served a pumpkin soup with a soy-tofu foam and now

offers a corn soup with squash blossoms. The main dish is a basmati-stuffed

pepper with diced vegetables, dried fruits and pecans. For dessert: a rich

chocolate ganache tart made with maple syrup and presented with sour cherry

compote and roasted Spanish almonds.

 

" It's shortsighted to think that everyone eats meat and fish, " said Fraser.

Tellingly, the vegan rice-stuffed pepper outsells the chicken, said Richard

Drapkin, managing partner.

 

With a gilded edge

 

While it doesn't seem like such a leap for a chef like Fraser, cooking in an

ambitious modern style, it's something of a surprise to find an extensive

vegan menu at a formal French restaurant.

 

But that's exactly what Jean Francois Meteigner is doing at La Cachette in

Century City. It started last year, with an episode of " Dinner for Five, " an

Independent Film Channel series with actor Jon Favreau and four guests.

 

An episode was being shot at the restaurant. " Two days before, they tell me

one guy is vegan, " Meteigner said. " That is when I started seriously

panicking. I didn't know what vegan food was, frankly. Then I did a lot of

research on the computer. I found that we had a lot of stuff that worked. "

 

That guest, actor Ed Begley Jr., became a regular at La Cachette, and

Meteigner started cooking monthly vegan dinners. Now Begley has spread the

word to fellow vegans, such as actor James Cromwell, and Meteigner has

expanded his repertoire with $50 vegan-tasting menus on Friday nights. On

Aug. 10, he'll do seven courses, pairing each one with either fresh-squeezed

juices or wine. He's even offering a $25 vegan picnic basket.

 

As Meteigner presented a beautifully composed terrine of beets, avocado and

heirloom tomatoes, he couldn't contain a bit of pride.

 

" If vegan could be like this all the time, I'd eat it all the time, " he

said. His family is eating more vegan meals partly to avoid his toddler

daughter's egg and dairy-product allergies and because his wife, Allie Ko,

grew up on Korean cooking that's often all-vegetable. Ko introduced her

husband to ingredients as she shopped for soy milks, rice ice creams and the

like for their daughter.

 

It's not without some sacrifice that these chefs give up their traditional

ways of cooking. Yet as demand grows for vegan food, many have adjusted.

 

Six weeks ago, Miró, the restaurant at Santa Barbara's Bacara spa and

resort, added a four-course, prix-fixe menu for vegans and vegetarians.

 

" When we'd get a vegan request, it always seemed like it was during a rush, "

said sous-chef Joe Anguiano. " It was like we turned into Iron Chef and had

to do something spur-of-the moment. "

 

Chefs these days also have to consider nutrition as much as they do taste

and presentation, said John Rucci, an executive food and beverage manager at

the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. Chef Bill Bracken of the hotel's

Belvedere restaurant has adapted many recipes to appeal to vegans.

 

" In this day and age, " said Rucci, " if you can't vary from macrobiotic to

vegan and everything in between, you are not going to survive. "

 

In fact, vegan dining has become a sort of draw for some restaurants. In

June, Hugo's in Studio City hosted a " Mindful Dining " evening of mostly

vegan courses accompanied by meditations on the food. Its 40 seats sold out

in a week.

 

When he moved from Atlanta three years ago to Jer-ne at the Ritz-Carlton

Hotel in Marina del Rey, chef Troy N. Thompson offered many vegan menu items

in anticipation of dozens of requests. The response wasn't overwhelming, but

he's still pushing toward a more haute vegan menu. He's done vegan meals

with wine tastings and is redesigning the restaurant's menu to include a

" veggie menu " that will appeal to vegans, vegetarians and omnivores alike.

 

At HamaSaku, a Westside Japanese restaurant, owner Toshi Kihara has his

chefs turn tomatoes and a sushi rice risotto into objects of art. Beneath

the pickled eggplant and snow-pea garnish is a tasty and satisfying dish.

For three years, he's offered a vegan menu, mainly because he's noticed

diners from the entertainment industry are increasingly avoiding meat and

dairy products.

 

Until recently, vegan cuisine was perhaps accurately perceived as an austere

way of eating that was more heavily infused with philosophy than with

flavor. In the nearly 60 years since the British Vegan Society coined the

term vegan for nondairy vegetarians, the concept has become more mainstream.

Locally, restaurants such as Real Food Daily have grown as they've cast off

their grubby, extreme-cuisine image in favor of a good-for-you gourmet

label.

 

Eddie Caraeff, chef of the Newsroom Café in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica,

is one of the city's pioneers in restaurant vegan cooking. His Santa Monica

cafe opened 13 years ago with a menu minus red meat and fried food. It's the

same today, but his vegan customers make up nearly 20% of the patrons, who

frequently include some of the city's top chefs.

 

" It is harder to cook vegan, " said Caraeff, who is glad to see haute cuisine

embrace the animal-free ideal. " Usually vegan food is so bland. Why is that?

Do they think that vegans won't take anything with a little zip? "

 

Beyond Tofurkey

 

Vegan cuisine itself has adopted a more progressive attitude. Making pretend

" lamb chops " or using vegetable ingredients to mimic other animal-based

foods is passé. Chefs are maximizing fresh produce with simple dressings and

purées, and creating beautiful plates of artfully combined ingredients. Eric

Tucker at Millennium in San Francisco has helped make vegan home cooking

more interesting too.

 

" A lot of people think of it as for ex-hippies who are eating granola and

brown rice and overcooked vegetables somewhere. We are showing that you can

do a lot of different textures and flavor combinations, " Tucker said.

 

The success of vegan cuisine has spread awareness of the diet's vast

potential, not just its limitations.

 

Tucker recently moved the Millennium restaurant just blocks from Union

Square in San Francisco - a move that's symbolic of veganism's encroachment

upon mainstream culture. In November, Tucker's new cookbook, " The Artful

Vegan " (Ten Speed Press), will show home cooks how to put a gourmet spin on

vegan cuisine with the restaurant's recipes. A new everyday vegan cookbook

" Vegan Planet, " by Robin Robertson (Harvard Common Press), puts 400 vegan

recipes in paperback.

 

Still, this cuisine can be tricky for chefs used to consuming the world's

bounty.

 

" As a French chef, " said Meteigner, " it's very difficult to use no eggs or

butter. "

 

Fraser, meanwhile, continues to explore. Right now, he's working on an

entree composed of stuffed vegetables: an heirloom tomato with couscous and

hemp seed; a fried squash blossom with potato stuffing; a poblano chile

filled with rice; and maybe even some new twists on squash.

 

Um, hemp seed?

 

" It's got the same texture as couscous, " he said, not to mention essential

fatty acids. " And if you're not going to eat meat, it's a good thing to

consider. "