Arcane’s restaurateur and chef Shane Osborn says, “As with anywhere in the world, we are becoming, as chefs and consumers, more educated about our eating habits, both in terms of the effect on our health as well as the environment. I believe we all have a responsibility to look at this and see what changes we can make personally and professionally.”

People are becoming more aware of how personal choices are having an effect on the planet, especially when it comes to food. A survey done by Oxford Martin School, the research arm of the University of Oxford, stated, “If the world went vegan, it could save eight million human lives by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds and lead to health care-related savings and avoided climate damages of US$1.5 trillion.”

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Lisa Terauchi-D’Rozario became a vegan three years ago after a health scare prompted her to look for ways to reverse disease with a more holistic approach.

“All the research I did pointed in the direction of the adage, ‘you are what you eat’,” says Terauchi-D’Rozario, who opened Confusion Plant Based Kitchen in Sheung Wan last year. “Con Fusion is from the Spanish ‘with fusion’ because I love to mix things up, spices, cultural influences, as I am from a mixed culture/race household,” she says. Her restaurant is packed every day of the week.

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According to Google search, the vegan trend quadrupled in the five years between 2012 and 2017, and it was getting almost three times more hits than vegetarian and gluten-free searches.

The Economist also reported that a quarter of 25- to 34-year-old Americans say they are vegans or vegetarians. In Sweden alone, one in five people under the age of 30 is vegetarian or vegan.

According to chef Paul Lau Ping Lui at Tin Lung Heen in The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong hotel, veganism has always been popular among Chinese people but the quality of the dishes are attracting more diners to try them.

“Vegan dishes have always been in demand in Hong Kong; especially in Chinese culture and [people who follow the] Buddhist religion, so some people adopt a vegan diet for religious reasons or on special occasions such as Buddha’s Birthday,” says Lau.

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“But I think chefs now are more focused on catering to various personalised diets and to enhance diners’ experience. When better quality is available, it creates more interest from our diners to try vegan menus.”

Lau has created a vegan tasting menu that features dishes such as an assorted appetiser platter of sautéed porcini mushroom in black pepper sauce and deep-fried vegetarian bean curd sheet rolls with cordyceps and mushroom, “which is both delicious and nutritious”, says the chef.

“It is more challenging to put together a vegan menu mainly because of the limitations of ingredients,” explains Lau, who has more than 36 years experience cooking Chinese cuisine. “It won’t be an interesting or well-balanced vegan menu if all the dishes were either fried mushroom or blanched green vegetables. So for me, the key is to create a menu that showcases a diverse selection of ingredients, cooking methods and flavours.”

For example, he has created vegan sweet and sour pork using Omnipork and a stir-fried brown fungus with seasonal crunchy vegetables served in a crispy nest featuring carrots, lotus roots, snow peas, Chinese water chestnuts, fresh lily bulbs and cloud ear fungus. “We use seasonal ingredients to create this nutritious and crunchy dish,” he says.

At Arcane, Osborn says putting together vegan dishes is not too difficult: “We are mainly a produce-led restaurant so I would say no, it is not [too challenging to put together a vegan menu]. Rather than making the meat the hero of the dish, we let the vegetable shine. It’s not hard to do when we find exceptional produce such as our Japanese fruit tomatoes.”

The Michelin-star chef – who also featured as a finalist on Netflix’s The Final Table – has created some elevated vegan dishes such as baby artichokes and onions with peas, black olive crisp and argan oil dressing and a dessert featuring Mara de bois nectavigne and Delaware grapes with strawberry consommé, green almond and coconut sorbet.

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Some of the multicultural dishes at Confusion restaurant includes a tasty Mexican tofu and bean taco, an Indian dal chawal with subzi (lentils and rice with vegetables) and “chicken” chettinad, and even a Beyond Burger served with sweet potato fries.

Terauchi-D’Rozario does not like labels when it comes to her restaurant.

“We’ve never looked at ourselves as being a vegan restaurant, but as one that happens to serve food anyone would want to eat – without labels. This is why 70 per cent of our customers are omnivores, and they are repeat customers because the food is good and just so happens to be 100 per cent plant-based at a time when more people are conscious about the impact of their food choices,” she says.

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