Sector
Food, Food service
Category
Trends, Vision
Author
Maaike van Rooden
Reading time
5 minutes
Food and drink are wonderful and influential media for working towards a better world and better choices. It is our primary necessity in life, but can also be an important social moment. Food brings people and cultures together; a good breeding ground for conversation and to experience alternatives.
Restaurants facilitate this through their kitchen and entourage. A distinctive, relevant position is important in the wide range of catering establishments. For example, we see that more and more players in this sector are focusing on a social message and using local and sustainable ingredients; from comfort food to fine dining. This is how they can excite their customers and the delicious dishes they create provide proof that better food does not have to compromise on taste – on the contrary.
Three-star restaurant Eleven Madison Park is a high-profile example; in 2021, star chef Daniel Humm shook up the culinary world with the message that the restaurant would reopen after the corona lockdowns with a completely vegan menu. The forced standstill had made him think: a different way of living and dealing with our food is necessary, according to him, because the current food system is not sustainable. He believes in a plant-based future and sees an important role for chefs in this. They have to make vegan dishes sexier and more magical, create a new luxury. And thus inspire, surprise, and show people new possibilities that will make them change their thoughts (and behaviour) surrounding food.
Humm sees an analogy with the first hybrid car. Toyota Prius came on the market 25 years ago. People who drove a Prius were convinced of the need to drive electrically for a better world (the frontrunners), because you didn’t do it for the looks of the car. Then came Tesla, the first luxury electric car. The brand was attractive, the total experience incomparable. People wanted to belong and be seen with it. And, so, electric driving reached a much larger group and went mainstream.
Creating plant-based dishes that people want to be seen with, that they want to stand in line for. That is the job of current, emerging, and future chefs. Eleven Madison Park seems to be working out well, because, since the immediate reopening in June 2021, the restaurant has been continuously fully-booked.
Eleven Madison Park may be the only vegan restaurant with three Michelin stars, but it is certainly not the only top restaurant for plant-based fine dining. They all want to break with the status quo of the food system and make a positive contribution to a better world, as this selection shows:
"A restaurant experience is about more than what’s on the plate. We’re thrilled to share the incredible possibilities of plant-based cuisine."
– Daniel Humm, chef Eleven Madison Park
Gauthier Soho, London
French chef Alexis Gauthier also decided in June 2021, after the lifting of the corona restrictions, to reopen his restaurant Gauthier Soho in London with a completely vegan menu. The renowned chef made the decision to stop working with animal products and thus make a positive contribution to animal welfare and reducing the CO2 footprint. The restaurant has been around for 10 years and is known for French gastronomy. Gauthier has ‘veganised’ the iconic dishes, such as ‘faux gras’ of mushrooms, lentils, walnuts, and cognac, and pithivier with vegan minced meat, white beetroot, and black truffle.
Joia, Milan
Joia was the first European vegetarian restaurant to receive a Michelin star. That was in 1996. The name of the restaurant (Joia means fun in Italian) tells in one word what it stands for: bringing pleasure to dinner through healthy, plant-based cuisine that is kind to the planet and all living beings. Eating at Joia is a journey of discovery, according to chef Pietro Leemann, a continuous surprise of flavours, an adventure for the senses, mind, and thoughts. In the kitchen – also with pleasure – there is plenty of experimentation to create refined dishes with original flavours.
Ark, Copenhagen
One of the leading restaurants in Copenhagen’s food mecca is Ark. Through a sharing tasting menu in a casual setting, they want their guests to experience that vegan dishes have just as much flavour and dimension as any other cuisine. With a positive, attractive approach, they want to create a new narrative that is accessible and breaks with stereotypes. In this way, the restaurant wants to inspire people to eat less meat and to reduce the damage to the planet. The Danish-Australian owners call it ‘Conscious, yet exciting, dining’.
De Nieuwe Winkel, Nijmegen
In November 2022, De Nieuwe Winkel was voted the best plant-based restaurant in the world at the Gastronomic Forum in Barcelona. Earlier this year, the restaurant received its second classic Michelin star and its first green star for sustainability; rewards for the flavours, techniques, and creativity of chef Emile van der Staak. De Nieuwe Winkel stands for botanical gastronomy, cooking with plants to make the world a better place. Van der Staak has noticed that more and more people realise that our current way of eating is harmful to our planet, and that they are open to change if there are good alternatives to the traditional approach. De Nieuwe Winkel takes guests into the richness of plant-based food. Discovering, researching, and experimenting with applications for edible plants from the region, and the season, are central to his kitchen.
Want to find out more?
Do you want to know how you can inspire and surprise your customers to opt for a plant-based alternative? And do you want to include the vegan offer in a magical, high-profile way in your store, company restaurant or food concept?
