National Culinary Review

Market carrots, hazelnuts, smoked paprika, roasted onion, white bean “gnocchi” and coriander purée come together in Carrots Romesco at The Signature Room at the 95th.

October 2009. And more than 30 hospitals nationwide have signed on to Health Care Without Harm’s Balanced Menus Challenge, agreeing to reduce meat purchases by 20%.

The state of Michigan sponsored Michigan Meatout Day to encourage residents to cut down on meat, and San Francisco passed a resolution calling on schools, stores and restaurants to offer non-meat food options.

With child (and adult) obesity at the forefront of a governmental initiative around healthier eating, plant-based, meatless meals are an increasing trend. This can be seen particularly among young people, as noted in a recent survey of students at State University of New York at Purchase, N. Y., in which about a third of respondents identified themselves as vegetarian, but more than 90% regularly ate at the on-campus vegetarian cafe.

And giving even more impetus to restaurants that want to increase their vegetarian options, Restaurants & Institutions 2010 New American Diner Study showed 23% of consumers eating more meatless entrées than just a year ago.

HOOKED ON VEGGIES Dovetail, The New York Times rated three-star restaurant on the upper west side of Manhattan, instituted a Monday four-course vegetarian and vegetarian-focused menu in March. Chef/proprietor John Fraser started it initially as a challenge to the kitchen.

“Vegetable cookery has been status quo for a long time,” he says. “We’d do a purée of this and a little of that. I felt we needed to mess things up a bit in the kitchen and push the envelope to make things more interesting and collaborative. We also wanted to better source the abundance of produce available at New York’s farmers markets.” In addition to the regular menu, Monday nights feature strictly vegetarian selections, including a vegetable consommé cooked in a Mason jar with mushroom dumplings and spicy pickled carrots, a lasagna of braising greens with pine nuts, feta cheese and morels, and parsnip “acting like a spare rib,” with tamarind BBQ sauce, pineapple and crispy shallots.

The vegetable-focused entrées include English cucumber/potato stew, shiso, jalapeño, sea urchin and congee, and a fennel confit with bonito flakes, eggplant miso purée and kimchi.

“It’s been wildly successful,” says Fraser. “I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but there are many reasons that people are eating less meat. Some do it out of concern for the way farm animals are raised and treated, and others for health reasons. And some just decide to try the menu for fun, and get hooked.”

ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE In Chicago, executive chef Patrick Sheerin would be the first to point out that The Signature Room at the 95th would most likely not be thought of as particularly vegetarian-friendly. Situated atop the John Hancock Center, the dining rooms and lounges take up 25,000 square feet over two floors, averaging almost 500 covers a night in addition to lunches and special events, with a staff upward of 60 people in the kitchen.

Yet Sheerin is among the city’s Green City Market’s largest supporters, purchasing on the spot and forming long-term relationships with farms that grow specific items toward which much of his food budget goes. He is