First of all, vegan chef refuses to give up on great taste
MIAMI — Tal Ronnen’s food philosophy isn’t unusual for a chef of his caliber. It also isn’t complicated. Simply put: Taste above all.
And then you realize he’s vegan, an approach to eating that too often has been defined by foods so virtuous they taste worse than the packaging they come in. Except that’s not Ronnen’s game. For him, it doesn’t matter if the food is raw, organic, vegetarian, vegan, local, gluten-free, animal-free, free range or free spirit. If it doesn’t taste great, he isn’t interested.
“Restaurants get it wrong all the time by serving fake meat that doesn’t interest meat eaters, or a vegan plate that’s little more than an uninspired pile of vegetables,” Ronnen writes in his new cookbook, “Crossroads.” “Some still fall into the trap of thinking that vegetables or legumes need to be disguised as meat in order to be palatable.”
In other words, you won’t find the hipster-favored cauliflower steaks at Ronnen’s Los Angeles restaurant, also named Crossroads. Instead, his main courses center on vegetables that aren’t disguised as burgers or steaks or other meaty dishes. Rather, they deliver savory, meaty flavors on their own power, things like roasted shiitake mushrooms that pack in crispy bacon-esque flavor in a salad or pureeing yellow tomatoes into a creamy bearnaise sauce.
He’s the sort of chef who says there’s something so exciting about vegetables that it keeps him up at night. A few months ago when Ronnen couldn’t sleep, he decided to
reinvent “fruits de mer” featuring lobster mushrooms that he batters and fries, hearts of palm “calamari,” oyster shooters made from shiitake mushrooms poached in olive oil and kombu seaweed, and a crab louie salad along with a smoked “lox” made of heirloom carrots and kelp caviar.
Two days later it was on the menu.
“People went crazy for it,” said Ronnen, who turned vegetarian as a teen, at a time when the only veggie burgers available at the grocery store were dry mixes that had to be combined with water.
Still, he spends lots of time catering to the omnivore’s palate. There are plenty of lentil dishes and healthy kale salads on his menu and featured in his latest cookbook. And most of his restaurant guests are not vegetarian. “They just like good food.”
“Often times there’s a die-hard carnivore who’s coming to the restaurant, and that’s not going to cut it for them, so diving into the pappardelle bolognese really wins them over,” Ronnen said in a recent telephone interview.
Ronnen doesn’t shy away from carb-heavy pastas the way many healthy-eating restaurants do. There’s no seaweed kelp “pasta.” Instead, all the pasta is handmade, including the chive fettuccine with asparagus, morels and prosecco sauce and the cappellacci with spinach cream sauce made from cashews, all of which are featured in his cookbook.
He also has taken his popular pastas to the masses with two ricotta ravioli dishes sold at Whole Foods Market stores as part of the Kite Hill brand he co-founded. The label has won over dairy-loving skeptics with its smooth flavors and loyalty to the traditional cheese-making process. Unlike most faux cheeses, Kite Hill ages its own almond milk just like dairy milk. The result is a line of soft cheeses, cream cheeses and yogurts with a dead-on taste and texture.
Up next, he’s hoping to expand his offerings at the grocer. “Every day it seems like there are huge strides being made, and it’s fun to be part of a movement like that and really getting on the right side of history with food.”