Fast Food’s Biggest Innovators Right Now are Independent Black Vegan Chefs

By Kayla Stewart

A FEW YEARS after going vegan in 2011, professor Joslin Mar-Dai Pickens, EdD, was looking for ways to convince her daughter to try more plant-based eating. “She was a teenager and she wanted hamburgers and pizza,” Dr. Mar-Dai Pickens says. “Stuff that she would normally eat.”

So Mar-Dai Pickens, who lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, decided to re-create her daughter’s favorite family recipe—steak tips and mashed potatoes—using plant-based ingredients. Her daughter was hooked, and MarDai Pickens was inspired. What if she veganized other family recipes and regional dishes? She culled old cookbooks from her grandmother, and started testing vegan versions of local favorites like gumbo, wings, and hushpuppies. As she re-created these dishes in her kitchen, she began to convince her family of the endless possibilities in Black vegan food.

The family’s BBQ jackfruit brisket and vegan shrimp and grits became so popular that in 2019 they opened Vegans on the Run, the only Black- and family-owned vegan fast-casual restaurant in Shreveport, where more than half of the population is Black. The restaurant serves plates like “catfish” made from banana blossom, and jackfruitseitan “chicken” wings glazed in a spicy lemon-butter-pepper sauce.

Mar-Dai Pickens joins a host of Black chefs and restaurateurs across the country that are taking Black cuisine and transforming it to be faster, more casual, and in many cases, more healthconscious. Some call it fast food and some call it fast-casual. But there’s a common thread: These restaurateurs are showcasing Black vegan food through cuisine that Black Americans are familiar with—encouraging more people to come into the fold.

Oakland’s Vegan Mob garners block-wrapping lines on a regular basis, and Slutty Vegan, which opened in 2018, now has locations in Georgia, Alabama, and New York, with more outposts on the way. Mushrooms form the bacon on Vegan-ish’s bacon cheeseburger in Philadelphia, and po’boys are filled with fried cauliflower at Vegan Vibrationz in Dallas. At Eduble Chefs in Miami, brussel sprouts, mushrooms, and Impossible meat pair with white rice and a coconut milk sauce. Vegans and non-vegans alike are eagerly showing up.

In the rush of openings and expansions, Black celebrities like John Salley, Lewis Hamilton, and Kevin Hart have entered the vegan fast-food space, launching fastfood restaurants that boast classic burgers (meatless, of course) and fries. In cities like Atlanta, Houston, and Los Angeles, crowds of diners line up for vegan burgers, shakes and take-out meals. Today, Black chefs and restaurateurs are at the forefront of casual vegan dining in America—creating an inventive plant-based approach to classic Black American dishes.

Vegan food has of course existed throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America for centuries. Yet when it became popularized in the early 2010s in the United States, it was largely associated with whiteness. Vegan food was often served in expensive restaurants based in predominantly white communities, and accessing vegan cuisine that was also culturally relevant was a challenge for Black vegans. White restaurateurs took up the most space in the industry, touting quinoa and veggie bowls, ignoring vegan dishes long enjoyed by communities of color. Now, Black chefs are shifting this narrative by offering less stuffy, oftentimes less expensive offerings.

In Dallas, Jovan Cole is serving vegan fast food like “shrimp” po’boys, cauliflower buffalo wings, and mac and cheese at Vegan Vibrationz, a popup food truck that operates on weekends at the Dallas Farmers Market. Thanks to the popularity of the pop-up, he’s preparing to open a permanent outpost at Legacy Food Hall in the nearby city of Plano, Texas. “As a vegan, you couldn’t just go get you a fast burger or something quick like that,” says Cole. “That’s what led me on this vegan fastfood path.”

In Miami, Costa Rican native Christian Bernard draws from his experience living in Costa Rica, New York, and Miami at his restaurant, Eduble Chefs. Bernard serves dishes like a beanheavy Still Smokin’ Chili Bowl and a vegan sausage fried rice, and he shares his beliefs about the environmental significance of vegan dining. “I try to drill down as much as possible to make this not just see page 124

Black Vegan Chefs from page 123 about the food, it's about the whole thing. It’s about the Earth,” he says.

In Oakland, there are consistently lines of customers wrapping around the block, eager to try the local favorites at Vegan Mob. Toriano Gordon, the vegan BBQ and soul food restaurant’s owner, believes that restaurants like his are a gateway to vegan cuisine for customers who want to enjoy a fast meal without taking on the health risks often associated with traditional fast food. There’s fried lumpia stuffed with Impossible meat, onions, and spices; a plant-based nacho cheesesteak; and candied yams brushed with a hint of cinnamon. Providing what he sees as an alternative to nonvegan fast-food options, Gordon says, “I like to say that we combat what McDonald’s has.”

Despite long-standing generalizations and racist myths about Black food being unhealthy, vegan restaurateurs know that much of Black food is rooted in fresh produce and farm-to-table cooking. Vegan cuisine for chefs like Lamarr Ingram, who runs Vegan-ish in Philadelphia, is an opportunity for Black vegan chefs to share vegan food through a Black American lens. Reflecting its name, Veganish isn’t entirely vegan, serving seafood alongside vegan mainstays like a plant-based cheesesteak, avocado toast, and breakfast sandwiches.

Ingram believes that his identity as a Philadelphia native and his familiarity with the challenges and needs there allow him to better connect with those in his community while speaking about veganism. “It’s a huge benefit when I’m trying to communicate why we’re doing what we do,” he says. “All the benefits that come with a plant-based diet, I’ve been able to experience them in a community I’m from, and where people are suffering from a lot of health issues caused by what we eat.”

Ingram points to the high number of chronic illnesses that disproportionately impact the Black community as his motivation to spread the goodness of veganism any way he can. Notably, vegan fast food can still be processed and isn’t always a healthier option to non-plant based foods. But overall, vegan diets are attributed to major health benefits, like a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes and a reduced chance of certain cancers. Many Black Americans— disproportionately impacted by climate change and health conditions associated with racism—see vegan eating as an opportunity to fight against these challenges. For many chefs, this new era of interest in plant-based cuisine feels like a timely opportunity to expand vegan fast-food concepts across the US, reaching new, curious consumers. Arguably the pioneer of fast-food vegan dining is Pinky Cole. She owns Slutty Vegan, which opened in Atlanta in 2018, and gained near instantaneous success thanks to its fast-food burger and fry offerings, seductive, playful menu names (Ménage à Trois, One Night Stand, and the Side Heaux, to name a few), and an unapologetically Black and carefree persona. Today, there are Slutty Vegan locations across the country. With more than half a million followers on Instagram, the Slutty Vegan dining experience is emblematic of modern restaurant success: fast, sexy, and Instagrammable. Pinky, who authored the recently released cookbook, Eat Plants, B*tch, is proud of the gradual change that occurred in the vegan community since opening her first location. “We can anchor a movement that can be impactful,” says Pinky. “That people will fall in love with.” https://www.bonappetit. com/story/vegan-fast-foodmovement-black-chefs

WINE. COCKTAILS. Luxury hotels. Fine dining. Elegance. International travel. There is that adage, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” But what if you can’t dream it because it’s not part of your reality? And then you go and do it anyway.

That, in essence, is the story of Zimbabweborn Durban-based Job Jovo, 41, named “Best Sommelier of Zimbabwe 2021” at a taste-off in Cape Town. Remarkable for a man who was almost 30 years old when he tried his first glass of wine. And didn’t like it one bit.

Jovo, who has a four-year economics degree and had anticipated a career in finance and banking, was waiting tables in South Africa’s acclaimed Swartland wine region when he had that (not so) early baptism-by-wine. Little did the largerthan-life people-person know he was destined to develop the kind of refined palate that would win him awards and earn him sommelier placements at top establishments.

Sincere, affable, down-to-earth, funny — with a delightful eye for life’s absurdities — and a great storyteller, he is not embarrassed to share that