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The rise of meat-free haute cuisine

For years, gourmets have turned up their noses at the idea of eating vegetarian or vegan cuisine at fine dining restaurants; although to be fair, many chefs didn’t quite live up to the challenge of transforming sprouts and weeds into culinary masterpieces either.

An exotic and visually captivating serving of seasonal vegetables 
from JAAN. 
Photo: JAAN

An exotic and visually captivating serving of seasonal vegetables
from JAAN.
Photo: JAAN

For years, gourmets have turned up their noses at the idea of eating vegetarian or vegan cuisine at fine dining restaurants; although to be fair, many chefs didn’t quite live up to the challenge of transforming sprouts and weeds into culinary masterpieces either.

Until now, that is.

Thanks to a growing number of vegetarians, vegans and curious epicures, there has never been a better time to be a vegetarian gourmet. Even the best restaurants around the world, including Noma and Fat Duck, have placed a larger focus on plant-based dishes than on the meat-heavy dishes that once dominated their menus. And if you think you won’t be full on a veggie menu, prepare to be pleasantly surprised.

In Singapore, a Vegan Vibes Festival — tagged as “a day of food, music and positivity” — is set to sprout early next year. But even before that, a cadre of top chefs are letting plants play a starring role in haute cuisine. Just last month, St Pierre chef-owner Emmanuel Stroobant dished out a 12-course vegan tasting menu for a group called Chicks Eat Vegan and the Singapore Vegetarian Meet-up Group. The 30 diners came from all walks of life and included meat-eaters curious about whether it is possible to have a satisfying veggie-based meal at a fancy restaurant.

Stroobant and his small army of chefs sent out plates filled with paper-thin slivers of Jerusalem artichoke, ribbons of raw asparagus, Meyer melon and black truffle essence; crunchy rolls made from savoy cabbage leaves on a pool of pine nut consomme; and quinoa sushi tempura that tasted like toasted nuts with pickled jelly and pineapple jam.

“Like any menu, the vegan menu is built on flavour, texture and complexity,” Stroobant explained. “With vegan cooking, we are really focused on the product ... there is very little cooking and very simple preparations, such as pickling and compressing, so the quality of the produce is very important.”

A vegan himself, Stroobant procures his ingredients from small, sustainable sources. “I spend a lot of time looking for and getting to know my producers and suppliers inside out. I get my cheeses from a farmer with a small farm in northern Tuscany. I’ve visited him and seen how he milks the cows and makes the cheeses. It takes time, but it’s worth it because that’s how you really know what you are getting,” he said.

PLANTING SEEDS

For Chicks Eat Vegan co-founders Tara Melwani and Kheng Chua, who founded the group last April, menus such as Stroobant’s dispel the old thinking that “healthy food means tasteless food”.

Melwani explained: “We are trying to work with good restaurants to debunk that notion. The focus is solely on the food — we don’t try to preach (veganism) to anyone.”

At Bacchanalia, executive chef Ivan Brehm makes it a point to ensure that vegetarian diners such as Melwani have plenty of options. In a way, Melwani, who frequents the restaurant, helped Brehm enhance his selection (“almost everything we’ve cooked for her has ended up on our vegetarian menu”), but the chef, who is married to a vegetarian, added that cooking for his wife at home made him evaluate how he cooks at the restaurant.

“Vegetarians,” he observed, “have a very good palate. They can taste extremely nuanced flavours.”

As such, Brehm’s kitchen team views every ingredient as an inspiration point. “The important thing is how good the ingredient is,” he said. “To me, it’s better to eat one good carrot than a spoonful of bad caviar.”

This ethos is best displayed in his eight-course vegan tasting menu that includes complex dishes such as a carrot consomme made from a varying selection of the vegetable (sourced from Cameron Highlands and Europe) with Thai basil and clarified carrot stock. Many of his ingredients also come from the restaurant’s garden, which was created in collaboration with the National Parks Board to revive varieties of herbs that date back about 400 years.

“We have herbs like ruta that we serve with a mandarin granita; and a plant known as the ‘toothache plant’, which has a numbing effect and makes food taste sour.”

VEGGING OUT

For Julien Royer, the feted young chef de cuisine of JAAN, cooking with vegetables is in his blood. The son of farmers from the Auvergne region of France shared how he grew up surrounded by organic produce, which fostered his love of cooking vegetables and fruit.

His three- to seven-course vegetarian menus change according to the seasons, so you might get zucchini “trumbetta” — served with silky burratina cheese, basil and a sauce made from almonds and black olives — one time, and a divine organic chestnut raviolo filled with a runny egg yolk — served with a sweet puree of Jerusalem artichokes, black trumpet mushrooms and Perigord truffle shavings — the next.

“Essentially, we try to find products that are in season from different countries and create dishes that are well-balanced and respectful of the products,” Royer said. “We try to retain the original taste and purity of the produce and garnish them with flowers and herbs. It has to be interesting for the diners, something that they cannot make at home, and most importantly, something that is tasty.”

“In the past,” said Brehm, “a diner who wanted a vegetarian dish at a good restaurant might have been served a salmon dish without the salmon. Now, customers are more aware that they can demand better food and chefs have more competition.”

This golden age of vegetarian food can also be attributed to a focus on healthier eating, offered Stroobant. “Many people of my generation now have health issues because of the way we have been eating for most of our lives,” he said. “Now that people like us are turning towards more natural eating for the sake of our health, we search for more quality food that is good for our bodies — and that is vegetables.”

For more about vegetarian haute cuisine options visit http://tdy.sg/todayfood

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