Vegetarian dishes see broadening appeal

DB Bistro Moderne in New York is well known for Daniel Boulud’s highly acclaimed $32 foie gras-stuffed, truffle laden DB Burger. But after a recent five-week renovation and menu revamp, the restaurant is also finding success with a number of meat-free options.

The famous burger, which retained its place on the menu, is now joined by a section of the menu called Cuisine du Marché, designed to showcase the best ingredients from local farmers markets. It wasn’t a deliberate move by the restaurant’s culinary team, but in the effort to highlight the best of what’s local and seasonal in their area, vegetables emerged as a natural area of focus.

“Four of the six appetizers of our Cuisine du Marché [menu] are vegetarian, and one of the pastas, as well,” DB executive chef Jim Burke said.

Burke said all of the dishes, from the famous meaty burger to the new vegetarian salt-baked celery root, have been selling well since the restaurant reopened in mid-September.

He’s not alone in seeing customers take a shine to vegetarian dishes.

While Gallup polls say the number of people who identify themselves as vegetarians has remained steady at about 5 percent since 1999, a growing number of consumers — even meat-loving ones — are embracing veggie-laden or vegetarian dishes, at least some of the time. In fact, in a Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the Vegetarian Research Group, 43 percent of non-vegetarian respondents said they eat one or more meatless meals a week, a group sometimes referred to as “flexitarians.”

The shift comes amid a growing consumer interest in health, the introduction of social campaigns such as Meatless Monday, and the mainstreaming of traditionally vegetarian and vegan products like tofu and almond milk. To meet the growing demand, chain and independent restaurants are responding with a wide variety of vegetable-focused dishes.

There are the specialized vegetarian concepts, of course — including 21-unit Veggie Grill of Los Angeles and New York’s 23-unit Maoz Vegetarian — but there’s also been growth among chains that serve meat but showcase vegetable dishes because they fit their brand image as healthful or seasonal concepts. Those chains include six-unit True Food Kitchen, 10-unit Snap Kitchen and 31-unit Seasons 52, among others. Larger chains are getting in the mix, too. Chipotle Mexican Grill earlier this year introduced a tofu-based protein option, and Tropical Smoothie Café planned to add a soy-and-pea-based meat substitute this fall. Even Burger King added a new veggie burger in its menu rollout this past spring.

In fact, the occurrence of vegetarian dishes on restaurant menus was up 22 percent between January and March 2013 versus the same period a year earlier, according to Chicago-based Technomic Inc.’s MenuMonitor database.

Chefs at small chains and independents, in particular, are pushing the limits of vegetarian fare, experimenting with various cooking methods, textures and flavors to give vegetables the same depth of flavor and visual appeal of protein-based dishes.

At DB Bistro Moderne, Burke serves a celery root appetizer made by coating the root in a sea salt crust, baking it, trimming it, slicing it thickly and treating it like a steak, searing it in oil with garlic and thyme and basting it with butter. He serves it with apple confit, apple purée and diced apple mixed with cooked barley and sautéed wild mushrooms.

“We’re taking a few ingredients and maximizing the textures and flavors that we get from them,” Burke said. The dish is $16.

Mixing it up

Trey Foshee, chef of George’s at the Cove in La Jolla, Calif., said many of his non-vegetarian customers will mix and match meatless and meaty dishes, such as an octopus appetizer and a vegetarian entrée.

He usually has two vegetarian entrées on his menu at California Modern, one of three venues at the seaside destination. One that’s currently popular with meat eaters is his $28 Risotto Verde.

A play on the Mexican dish arroz verde, Foshee starts the dish by puréeing a slow-roasted onion with spinach, cilantro and parsley. He adds that to Spanish bomba rice that he has sautéed in olive oil with diced poblano peppers. He makes a risotto out of that dish, finishing it with roasted cherry tomatoes, chanterelle mushrooms, sautéed summer squash, corn and pea tendrils.

“It’s a rich, satisfying dish, and completely vegetarian,” he said.

Jesse Kimball, chef of Memphis Taproom in Philadelphia, found that the restaurant’s focus on craft beer attracted a lot of vegetarians.

“The craft beer clientele are different sorts of people,” he said. “You have the people that want to party because they love beer and want burgers and wings, and then there are people who are more into the craft of it who tend to be vegetarian.”

He developed dishes that appeal to both groups, such as his $11 Smoked Coconut Club. He starts with whole coconuts, cracking them open, scooping out the meat and shaving it thinly. He cures it with brown sugar, salt and pepper, and then smokes it over cherrywood chips.

“It has like a bacon kind of texture and a smoky taste,” he said. “But it also tastes like coconut.”

He said that although the coconut obviously doesn’t have a pork-like “funkiness, … raw coconut has an odd taste like an heirloom pig would have,” and it comes through in the sandwich, which also has grilled lemon-garlic tofu, tomato-herb mayonnaise and, like any club sandwich, lettuce and tomato.

Kimball also has been using jackfruit instead of crab in dishes.

He said the idea came from Indonesian restaurants, which braise the Southeast Asian fruit, which falls apart in strings in a way similar to crab meat.

He started by making jackfruit cakes seasoned with Old Bay and is currently offering a Creole-style cake with spicy rémoulade, jalape?o and green onions.

“It’s like mini Creole crab cakes — appetizer style,” he said.

They’re priced at $11.

At Little Market in Chicago, chef Ryan Poli’s vegetarian squash and quinoa dish has gained a following.

He cooks the quinoa in vegetable stock with onion, celery and carrot.

Separately, he braises butternut squash in vegetable stock with fall spices such as star anise, allspice and clove.

At service, he adds some butter to the squash braising liquid and adds pickled cherries, cucumber, chives, parsley and tarragon. He mixes that with the quinoa and tops it with toasted almonds. The butternut squash, glazed with butter and topped with sea salt, goes on top of that, and he drizzles it with a gastrique made of Banyuls vinegar, honey, sugar and black pepper. He charges $17.50 for it.

“It’s a really popular dish, I think because of the popularity of quinoa right now,” Poli said.

“Sometimes I think chefs nowadays put more attention into vegetarian dishes,” he added.

But vegetarian dishes don’t have to be complex to be loved by everyone, said Bertrand Chemel, chef of 2941 Restaurant in Falls Church, Va.

“People always ask for my grilled sourdough,” he said.

He grills large slices of the bread — 4 inches wide and between 8 inches and 10 inches long — spreads them with ricotta cheese, and tops them with cremini mushrooms sautéed with parsley and garlic.

“People really love it,” he said.

He charges $5 per slice.

Robert Deiaco, chef and co-owner of East 12th Osteria in New York, has a vegetarian pasta dish that sells well with all his customers. His involtini with diced vegetables, basil cream and Pachino tomatoes is made by preparing each seasonal vegetable separately, and then rolling it with soft Crescenza cheese in a sheet of pasta, sprinkling it with Parmesan cheese and baking it until it’s crispy.

“You must cook the vegetables separately so you can taste each one of them,” he said. “Once the vegetables are cooled down and have their distinctive flavor, then you can use them together,” he said.

Although the exact vegetables he uses change with the season, recently he filled his involtini with diced artichoke sautéed with garlic and parsley, eggplant cooked in olive oil with garlic and mint, zucchini sautéed with oregano, and bell peppers roasted in the oven. The dish is $18.