My wife turns 50 tomorrow, and in celebration we went to New York City with her foodie sister to eat vegan food in several restaurants. As we were driving in from our home in Central PA I had the thought, “I bet in ten years the food we get this weekend will be completely outclassed everywhere.” I still think that’s true, but as it happened, our first two restaurant experiences illustrated past and current vegan trends, and our third meal showed the transcendent possibilities for the future. Here is a 25 year history of vegan food in the 21st century, as captured by a 36 hour whirlwind of vegan restaurant dining in early May, 2024.
Our first stop was at Ladybird, in the East Village. Part of the Overthrow Hospitality group, whose motto is: “Eat. Drink. Start a revolution,” Ladybird is like many East Village restaurants of the last thirty years – filled with hipsters as owners, staff and patrons, and conducting business in cramped and falling down quarters, but with charm to spare. The staff here were the most eager and the most stereotypically gung ho about being vegan of the three staffs we encountered. Very nice and not judgy or dour, but made a point of telling us that their wines and beers were all vegan, too, and somewhat chatty and conspiratorial when discussing the menu. Ladybird was also the cheapest of our three choices – three of us, ordering everything and having a couple drinks apiece rang up a bill of about $200, including tip. The highlight of the meal was “KFB,” or Kentucky Fried Broccoli. Deep fried in tempura batter with a sweet and tangy, hoisin-type sauce, KFB is made for arguing about who gets the last piece. Fortunately, we had a birthday girl in our party, so there was no question about who would get the last piece. Everything was tasty and richly flavored, and there were a pleasing variety of textures (my main peeve as a vegan adjacent spouse). The only sour note was the wines, which all tasted like homebrewed beer – a consequence of not using the animal product which is usually used in wine-making (?) but would render the vino not vegan, according to our server. Before I say this next thing, you have to realize that after 40 years of enthusiastic drinking I mostly don’t drink any more, yet had two glasses of the cava that night. I awoke at 3:00 a.m. and tossed my cookies. Certainly the cava was the primary factor, but to gain texture, much of the food at Ladybird was fried, and my 3:00 a.m. experience featured distinctive notes of cava and fried breading.
The next day, for lunch, we got a table at Delice & Sarrasin, a vegan French restaurant at the Noho/West Village border on Bedford St. Although I am not vegan, I do most of the cooking for my family these days, and it has been a real trial trying to figure out tasty, nutritious meals for my wife that are within my capabilities as a chef. My two main bete noires are dairy replacements, especially for cream sauces, and texture – so much vegan food ends up as mush. I was especially curious to see how D & S would substitute for all the cream in French cooking, and although I didn’t learn much I could use in my home kitchen, they certainly succeeded. Partly it was due to their provisioning – their vegan cheese was made in France, and the roquefort, especially, seemed to be made with the same cultures as cow cheese – the tang was identical and familiar. They also had a vegan smoked salmon that was indistinguishable from mellow lox -- I have no idea what it was made from. The cream sauces, too, such as the mustard creme on the duck, were creamy and had none of the agar agar jelliness nor cashew cream graininess and weight that frequently accompany vegan cream sauces. Texture-wise, the duck was a spectacular mimic, even including “skin,” that crisped and crackled under the breading. The foam on our cappuccino and in our dark hot chocolate was made of almonds or oats, but its treatment left it with the same silky, milky texture and flavor as cow milk in the same application. Not every dish was perfect – the cassoulet was especially disappointing, but I am a demanding and critical consumer of cassoulet. My suspicion was that, without duck or pork fat, the beans wouldn’t get that salty, crunchy, almost blistered texture and flavor, and they didn’t. Especially because the bowl included a large, whole steamed carrot (which my wife tells me is a “vegan thing”), the cassoulet came off more like a simple bean stew, and was certainly nothing to write home about. Still, the French flavors were vivid and satisfying, and the textures were in some cases very good – we will certainly return to D & S for some future celebration or to impress vegan friends we take to the city. The three of us again ordered everything we were interested in, but I didn’t drink and we paid about $230, which gave us plenty to take home in boxes. French to the end, the servers didn’t even mention that it was vegan food – I mean, it’s on the sign and in the menu – they just went about the serious and formal business of cooking and serving classic French cuisine.
Then we went for a walk on the High Line for about 4 or 5 hours, trying to make space for our piece de resistance, dinner at the Michelin (3!) starred 11 Madison Park. To get it out of the way, yes, it was about three times as expensive as the other two, but this was my affluent sister in law’s main birthday gift to her only sister for her 50th birthday and we were out for a special, memorable evening. Boy, did 11 Madison Park deliver. Another thing about me: I have been very fortunate to have some wealthy friends who loved fine food and liked me okay. I have eaten at Indigine in Portland, OR in the 70s; Montrachet in NYC in the 80s; and Nobu, Craft and Tabla in NYC in the 90s. The meal we had at 11 Madison Park last night was among the best I’ve eaten in any restaurant, vegan or no. Unlike the first two places, 11 MP didn’t try to make its food be like something else – there was no chicken or duck substitute and no particular cuisine that was modeled. Instead, each dish featured the immaculate essence of what was on the plate. So in one course there were Japanese seeds that looked and felt a little in the mouth like caviar, but they had their own essential flavor and texture that combined with the other flavors and textures to create transcendence. Where there was familiarity (“Bread and butter”) it was heightened and enhanced to such a degree that the question, “What’s in it?” was beside the point. The spiral croissant was buttery, flaky and chewy like a spectacular piece of puff pastry should be, and the morel infused, molded mixed oil “butter” that we spread on the croissant was as rich as marrow. You couldn’t possibly eat more than a bite at a time, yet you wanted those bites to never end. The soba noodles were in a broth of mushrooms that can only be described as a mushroom demi glace, as if a whole forest of shiitakes and portabellos were cooked down to a cup of broth. Viscous, unctuous and rich beyond any mushroom reduction I’ve ever had, yet simple and clear at the same time – essential. The special cocktails were delicious and great fun, and they have mastered the theatre of fine dining at 11 MP. In addition to the glorious space, the servers, bartenders and even bussers were choreographed and graceful, but also charming human beings who appreciated our appreciation and were generous with their knowledge, advice and memorable inside stories. If you haven’t been as fortunate as me to enjoy fine dining at multiple restaurants, here’s a little tip: the snootiness is a protective act to weed out the assholes. Go, be prepared to pay for the experience, and then enjoy it as much as you possibly can – that’s what everyone working at that restaurant wants to happen, and the more you enjoy it the more they will enjoy you as a customer.
I could go into more detail about each place, but what occurred to make me want to write this review was the thought that in our 36 hours we traced a pretty direct line from vegan past to vegan present to vegan could be. First we had vegetables being treated like whatever else might stick with the eating public – broccoli like KFC! Vegan mac & “cheese!” Most of the chef’s creativity went to matching vegetables with treatments that would resemble some already known and popular food, and the ideology was front and center. And needed to be, because the food itself sometimes wasn’t so great. Next we got into food technology created to serve specific cuisines, whether that meant mock chicken in Chinese food or “duck with skin” for French food. Here the ideology is subsumed to cultural considerations, but if you aren’t fond of the culture you’re shit out of luck. And finally we arrived at, “Okay, this is what we’ve got to work with. How can we combine it in original ways to create original eating experiences that rival any other restaurant experience in existence?”
It seems more and more likely that a climate reckoning is here that will continue to unfold for generations. This will affect every aspect of existence on this planet, and I wouldn’t put humankind’s odds of survival at better than 50-50. If we do survive, and fumble and grope our way through the coming, challenging years, we will have a variety of ways of reacting to the enforced changes in where we live, how we work and what we eat. Some will fall into dogmatic and pragmatic looking back exercises, eternally trying to say, “No, kids, look, it‘s just like a hamburger, only better for the planet.” Others will retract into insular communities of like-minded fellow travelers who share the same nostalgia and constantly try new technologies to recreate the perfect dish, “like Grandmama used to make at Christmas.” And finally, if we’re really lucky, some hardy, realistic and creative souls may say, “Okay, this is what we’ve got to work with. How can we make something beautiful, new and delicious out of it?” All three will have hungry audiences, but I hope I end up living near one of the places that takes the last approach. Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but if it’s absolutely delicious and is accompanied by morel-infused “butter,” he will definitely be happier to try.