[URBAN NOTE] "Restaurateurs are taking the leap of faith – they’re going vegan"

[rfmcdonald]

As someone who enjoyed a very good lunch at Yonge and Eglinton's Fresh this afternoon, Corey Mintz' article in The Globe and Mail makes sense. If something can be done and done well, why not?

Vegans becoming restaurateurs is an old story, often told as a joke. As in, did you hear about the Marxist who tried capitalism?

What’s new is restaurateurs going vegan, and their faith that the market will bear it.

Scrolling through the adventurous menu for Planta, Toronto’s newest vegan restaurant, you’ll find a few cheeky acknowledgments of the authors’ inspirations.

“Habibi” (Arabic for “beloved”) is a nod to the chef’s mother, who helped create the dish, a mix of finely chopped cauliflower, split pea fritters, parsley and mint. “The Italian Job” pizza, enriched with cashew mozzarella and fennel sausage, pays tribute to the 1969 Michael Caine film. And the “18 Carrot Dog” is of course a reference to the solid-gold balls that executive chef David Lee and owner Steven Salm must have in order to charge $17 for a carrot in a hot dog bun.

That veggie dog, a carrot smoked before being fried on a plancha grill, served with mustard, sauerkraut and pickles on a house-baked bun, is a signpost of change, evidenced by the unambiguous strategy spelled out on Planta’s website – “to fill a void in the market of upscale, full service, plant-based dining options” – based on an assumption that guests are willing to pay good money for non-animal food.

We are moving beyond the long-held and false perception that, because meat is expensive, vegetables should be cheap. That’s never been true. The current price of pecans is more than steak. Planta’s move into this market is the signal that customers are ready to value it.