Beyond the Veggie Burger

Creative menus that take vegetarians seriously give restaurants a valuable competition tool.

By Lauren Kramer

Vegetarian burgers. Fettuccini Alfredo. A side of hot vegetables. If your menu is giving vegetarian diners the blahs, consider some more interesting options.

There are approximately 6 million vegetarians in the United States, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group in Baltimore, but part-time vegetarians—people who often eat vegetarian fare but sometimes eat chicken and fish, too—number 48 million, according to a 2001 poll by Chicago-based Mintel Consumer Intelligence, a global supplier of consumer, media and market research.

“More and more nonvegetarians are adding meat-free foods to their dietary repertoire,” says Tal Ronnen, chef with the Vegetarian Advantage, a national consulting group in Norfolk, Va.

Ronnen says vegetarian meals are perfect for customers of all culinary persuasions, from finicky teenagers to dieters looking for low-fat options to guests with dairy allergies to those seeking easy kosher choices. And, a recent poll showed that up to 60% of restaurant diners want vegetarian options to be available when they eat out.

“Many chefs harbor misconceptions when it comes to vegetarian diners, such as that they#8217;re happy to just have anything on a plate, as long as it’s meatless, even if it’s a baked potato with salad,” Ronnen says. “Often, restaurants will put a bunch of side dishes together and call it the ‘vegetarian special,’ but you really need an entrée, for example, a soy protein, as center of plate.”

So soy

Ronnen helps restaurants incorporate vegetarian selections such as MoonRose®, a new line from Houston-based SYSCO Corporation, into their menus. MoonRose tries to meet the demand for vegan, low-fat and organic foods with products such as meatless “chicken” nuggets, vegetarian ribs and herb-crusted cutlets, all vegan items or meat analogs using soy-based proteins.

“Restaurants have a lack of resources and knowledge about how to put these dishes together,” Ronnen says. “The MoonRose line offers 70 meatless products that you can use to make flavorful dishes similar to the meat and chicken dishes already on your menu.”

Not everyone’s as enthusiastic about soy-based dishes, though. “I think tofu has become unfortunately categorized as ‘health food,’ and so is not a part of most chefs’ pantries,” says Edward Lee, chef at 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Ky. “Also, a serious reason for not using tofu is that the store-bought variety is quite inferior to homemade tofu, and tends to be flavorless, so it’s not worth the trouble.”

Yet, few chefs have the time or knowledge to make tofu. The process takes more than a day and requires special equipment. And, fresh tofu is highly perishable. As a result, tofu escapes the limelight in most all but strictly vegetarian and Asian restaurants.

Rare ingredients

Too often, vegetarian cuisine is perceived as cheap and representing a financial loss for establishments. That’s a myth, too, says Lee, particularly if you place the emphasis on creativity.

“Some of our most expensive ingredients per pound are fruits, vegetables or lettuces, for example, baby-cucumber blossoms, herb microgreens, fresh figs, specialty mushrooms and specialty oils like pistachio, pine-nut and truffle oils,” Lee says. “We use these ingredients to keep the price of our vegetarian menu competitive with our regular menu.

“Diners genuinely appreciate the rare and special ingredients, so they understand the cost of the meal,” Lee adds. “They have a memorable evening, and the restaurant does not ‘lose’ money by feeding a vegetarian.”

At Pasta Pomodoro, a 45-unit San Francisco-based Italian restaurant chain, chef/chief executive officer Adriano Paganini says 25% of his diners order vegetarian dishes. “It’s probably because we have so much variety,” he says.

The restaurant’s signature dish is ravioli di zucca, roasted-butternut-squash ravioli, browned butter, sage and Parmesan, a favorite among vegetarians. “The sage leaf is fried in butter and becomes crispy and salty, working perfectly with the ravioli, which is soft, and the stuffing, which is sweet,” Paganini says. Another favorite dish is melanzane, penne served with roasted eggplant, fresh mozzarella, basil and spicy tomato sauce.

At 610 Magnolia, Lee does 50 covers a night, and up to 10 of those diners are vegetarian. “We change our vegetarian menu weekly, depending on what’s going on locally and on the farms,” he says. “A lot of people are ordering vegetarian food because our options are inventive and we have such variety.”

Linking to Vegetarian Resources

• www.admworld.com
• www.gardenburgerfoodservice.com
• www.hain-celestial.com
• www.heartlandfields.com
• www.sysco.com/products/moonrose.asp
• www.tofurky.com/default.htm
• www.Vegcooking.com
• www.whitewave.com
• www.vrg.org

Lee makes a shiso roll of tiny sticks of fresh vegetables, such as carrots, daikon, Asian pear and cucumbers, rolled up in a shiso leaf. The vegetarian bacon, lettuce and tomato is a bite-size sandwich containing mushroom pâté, Gruyère, sun-dried tomatoes and Dijon mustard on toasted olive bread. And the Napoleon salad of root vegetables, featured in the fall and winter, is another popular vegetarian-menu item.

Focus on flavor

Using the freshest fruits and vegetables makes all the difference, says Lee. “Focus on a few flavors, and let them shine, rather than taking a hodgepodge of leftover vegetables mixed with pasta, which is confusing and bland. With vegetarian cuisine, it’s important to reach for a clarity of flavor.”

“Even something as simple as a carrot can be lifted to center stage if you start with fresh, organic carrots and create a dish highlighting their intense flavor,” he says. “For example, we have a dish where we stuff a zucchini blossom with goat cheese and tempura-fry it, serving it with a chilled carrot soup. The soup is nothing more than carrots simmered in carrot juice, then puréed until smooth, but we use wonderful garden-fresh Chantenay carrots, and that makes all the difference.”

It’s important to take vegetarian diners seriously, says Tom Douglas, chef and owner of four Seattle restaurants. “Twenty-five years ago, I was in the pasta-primavera boat, but things have changed, and these days we try to make our vegetarian fare as seasonal and as interesting as any other entrée.”

The menu at Lola’s, one of Douglas’ restaurants, features a tagine of roasted vegetables in a vegetable broth, served in a hot clay pot. “We roast the vegetables with a slight char, make a stock from onions, tomatoes and curry, and put it in a burning-hot clay pot so it caramelizes around the edges,” Douglas says. “The result is a sumptuous dish that’s filling, flavorful and delightfully unusual.”

Discerning diners

Far from being satisfied with mediocrity, vegetarians are highly discerning diners, says Lee. “They’re increasingly demanding the same effort and creativity that chefs apply to the rest of the menu. When I dine out, I often like to see what the vegetarian menu tastes like, because that, for me, is the true test of a great chef. Vegetarianism is not a food trend or a diet fad, it’s a way of life for many, and it’s here to stay. It’s also another platform to display the creativity of a chef.”

Some chefs consider vegetarian food to be boring, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, Lee adds. “Some of my most memorable meals, both in America and France, have been vegetarian, including the cuisine of Marc Veyrat, Charlie Trotter and, most recently, at Blue Hill at Stone Barns [a restaurant and working farm in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.].

“There are incredible flavors in the plant world, more varied and more intense than anything we can find in meat and dairy, and these chefs are interpreting them onto our plates with amazing precision. This, to me, is both exciting and revolutionary.”

Douglas agrees. “Vegetarians, or people who choose to eat that way, sometimes constitute 15% to 20% of the marketplace. Why lead that 20% out the door? The competitive advantage is to cater to them.”

Lauren Kramer is based in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.