TREND SETTER
Continually onward of international food trends, celebrated Parisian chef Alain Passard astounded the gastronomic world in 2001 when he stated that his three-starred Michelin restaurant L’arpege was releasing meat and going vegetarian. Vegetarian, let alone vegan, cuisine has seldom been the vocation of Michelin-starred chefs. That said, today in our forever changing world, fine dining is awakening up to the creativity of plant-based fare. ONA aka Origine Non-Animale is the first vegan restaurant in France to have been bestowed a Michelin star, together with winning a Green Star for virtuous practices. And where French cuisine drives, so tries the realm.

PLANT BASED MENUS

Agencies

Sol Kadhi at The Oberoi Gurgaon’s threesixtyone°

The chilled cases in Eleven Madison Park galleys are once again completely stocked, but this time with pots of aging beets with verdant green ends jutting out and more. Yes, the best restaurant in the world has a waiting list for its plant-based menu which has taken the world by storm. In Delhi Executive Chef Manish Sharma, The Oberoi Gurgaon follows suit and uses locally sourced ingredients in his special vegan menu, like cashew, coconut and almond milk and few like the organic date syrup and the Peruvian asparagus which are imported.

VEGAN DISHES GET HIP
Dubai’s Artsy Alserkal Avenue Wild & The Moon outlet offers almond milk smoothies and desserts like banana bread, in cinnamon and cashew cream that make Vegan sound hip. Goa based sustainable start up Wakao Foods offers plant-based fairly sourced Ready to Cook and Ready to Eat products; The first offering being the innate jackfruit meat which has found its way on many restaurant menus.

TWO SIDES TO A COIN
One element of what can be labelled as new veganism is an understood progress of the fresh eating and wellbeing trend, in some ways a rejoinder to that rage having been widely discredited. Painstakingly made healthy restaurants, offer a variety of earth bowls, burgers, and salads to the well-heeled willing to pay a noteworthy payment for those dishes.

Interestingly in a restaurant in London, one can opt from alcohol free drinks together with nourishing dishes. Temporarily, a key novel variant is also flourishing aka the fast-food prospect which is smashing an antiquated and once deep image, as well as retracting the declaration that vegan food, needs to be healthy with fried stuff like doughnuts and fried faux chicken, which emerge aimed to charm to a larger and perhaps a younger generation. All in all, this trend is here to stay and let’s hope only the healthier and happier way.

Rupali Dean is a food & travel writer based out of Delhi