Meatless Dining
Across the world more and more top chefs are offering vegetarian menus at their restaurants. And even dedicated meat eaters appreciate it.
When Denis Cotter of
Café Paradiso in Cork, Ireland was selected “Cook of the Year” in 2010, the gourmet scene was astonished, because Cotter runs one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Ireland. With the exception of a few pioneers such as Tal Ronnen (
Le Cordon Bleu, St. Louis), Alain Passard (
L’Arpège, Paris), Pietro Leeman (
Joia, Milan), Christian Wrenkh (
Wiener Kochsalon, Vienna) and Rolf Hiltl (
Hiltl, Zurich ), vegetarian cuisine is seldom offered at top restaurants.
This is currently changing. Some time ago American star chefs Thomas Keller (The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se in New York City), Jean-Georges Vongerichten (incl. Jean Georges in New York City), Eric Ripert (Le Bernardin in New York City) and Charlie Trotter (formerly of Charlie Trotter's in Chicago) published recipes in a vegetarian cookbook (Great Chefs Cook Vegan, Gibbs Smith) that has clearly inspired numerous colleagues. In April 2012 top American chefs Carla Hall, Michael Chiarello, Hubert Keller, Radhika Desai, Paul Qui, Kenny Gilbert and Hector Santiago were honoured as the seven best by “The Opinioness of the World” website for their vegetarian dishes.
Gabriele Kurz offers top-class vegetarian gourmet food to her international guests at the Magnolia restaurant in the five-star Madinat Jumeirah resort in Dubai. And Michael Hoffmann of the starred Margaux restaurant in Berlin serves a modern six-course “vegetable menu” with ingredients from his own garden in Brandenburg. German TV chef Christian Henze gets to the heart of the matter: “In star gastronomy vegetarian dishes led a shadowy existence for a long time. This is now changing rapidly, because more and more colleagues are discovering their infinite creative possibilities and great potential for enjoying vegetarian cuisine. Many top-class restaurants now have refined vegetarian dishes and even full-course dinners on the menu.
Text: Rainer Meier
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