Why fine-dining restaurants are ditching meat for plant-based menus – from New York’s Eleven Madison Park to the first Michelin-starred vegan eatery Ona in France

Jan 1 , 2022

Vegetarian fine-dining by Andreas Caminada at Oz restaurant in Switzerland. Photo: Oz

Luxury restaurants around the world are exploring ethical eating practices, such as the San Francisco-based Atelier Crenn, which aims to put lab-grown chicken on its menu

Geranium in Copenhagen, which ranks No 2 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, runs an experimental, plant-based popup Angelika within the restaurant

The shift to plant-based dining has been gathering strength over the last decade, but it took a pandemic for the world of fine dining to finally cross the Rubicon. With restaurants closed, chefs had time to take stock, and the enormity of the Covid-19 crisis pushed them to visualise a different future.

The year 2021 will surely be remembered as a watershed. In June, one of the world’s most respected luxury dining establishments, Eleven Madison Park, turned almost entirely plant-based. Chef-owner Daniel Humm, who led the New York City icon to the top spot on The World’s 50 Best Restaurant list in 2017, decided that after the pandemic he could not simply reopen business as usual. He realised, “Not only has the world changed, but that we have changed as well. The current food system is simply not sustainable, in so many ways.”

San Francisco-based fine-dining restaurant Atelier Crenn aims to put lab-grown chicken on its menu. Photo: Atelier Crenn

Taking the stage at this year’s award ceremony – held in Antwerp, Belgium, after a year’s hiatus – Humm said the notion of luxury needs to be redefined.

“We celebrate caviar as a luxury ingredient. But there’s nothing luxurious about caviar any more. It’s the opposite. It’s farm-raised, it’s flown in from far, it’s not rare at all, and it doesn’t taste good like it once did. It’s an old idea we’re holding on to,” he said.

So today, no more caviar on the menu, and no more of his signature duck with daikon and plum. Now it’s cucumber with melon and smoked daikon, and zucchini with lemongrass and marinated tofu, which he created after learning techniques from Zen Buddhist chefs. He does, however, offer honey and milk for the coffee and tea service, and eschews the term “vegan”, saying it can have negative connotations.

Swiss chef/co-owner Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park in New York. Photo: AFP Photo/Eleven Madison Park

A little further back, it was a year ago that another milestone in meat-free dining was reached when Beijing hotspot King’s Joy became the world’s first three-Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant. The cutting-edge kitchen earned two stars in the guide’s inaugural awards in 2019, adding another, as well as China’s first Michelin Green Star for environmental and sustainable practices, a year later.

In January 2021, the Michelin Guide also gave its first star to a fully vegan restaurant in France – Ona, in Arès near Bordeaux.

We celebrate caviar as a luxury ingredient. But there’s nothing luxurious about caviar any more. It’s the opposite

Daniel Humm, chef-owner at Eleven Madison Park

Dominique Crenn, who won this year’s Icon Award from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, went meat- (but not seafood-) free in her San Francisco-based Atelier Crenn in 2018. Now, in a surprise move, she is reintroducing it – with a twist – aiming to be the first chef in the US to offer lab-grown chicken on her menu.