Chefs challenge local restaurants to add vegan dishes for October

By Cliff Bellamy

cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744

DURHAM — Chefs at 10 Durham restaurants have accepted a challenge for October — to add a vegan entree, dessert, appetizer or full-course meal to their menus. Chefs have been given wide latitude for their creations, but they do have a few rules, said Eleni Vlachos, one of the organizers of the Bull City Vegan Challenge: no portabella mushroom dishes, hummus, veggie burgers or chocolate cake.

Vlachos and her partner, chef Shirlé Hale-Koslowski (Chef Shirlé), set up those rules to encourage more variety and to get chefs to think beyond those more common vegan staples, Vlachos said. During the month of October, residents will be able to dine on vegan choices at 10 Durham restaurants (see list), and vote on their favorite dish. In the next few weeks, Vlachos and Hale-Koslowski will post the dishes that each restaurant will prepare for the contest at bullcityveganchallenge.com. “People can go to the website and see what is being offered and make their game plan from there,” Hale-Koslowski said.

The lack of varied vegan offerings at local restaurants in part spurred them to create the contest. Both are members of local bands — Vlachos leads Beloved Binge, and Hale-Koslowski is in Free Electric State — and many people in the music community are vegan. Vlachos herself is vegan, and produced the documentary “Seeing Through the Fence,” which poses questions about the role of food in society. For about eight years, Hale-Koslowski (who calls herself “flexetarian”) has run Four Corners Cuisine, a personal chef service that fixes meals in people’s homes.

When she met Vlachos about two years ago, she began preparing vegan brunches in various venues. “They were really popular,” Hale-Koslowski said. “I was selling out in about 45 minutes. I just did it to offer the vegans something.”

She hopes that the success of the brunches might encourage someone to open a vegan restaurant (which she stressed that she does not want to do). “There’s definitely a need here. It’s just a matter of somebody wanting to open a restaurant and making it happen.”

The Bull City Vegan Challenge did present some obstacles for the organizers. For many chefs, a customer request for something vegan upsets a well ordered routine, Vlachos said. The partners realized that many chefs would probably laugh if they were simply asked to begin including a vegan choice, Hale-Koslowski said.

So they decided to appeal to the competitive nature of chefs — as seen in the popular “Top Chef” and similar television series — and make a contest. They did some “cold calls” of local restaurants, and while some were dismissive, others took up the challenge.

As word got around, more restaurants wanted to join the challenge, but the organizers wanted to hold the number at 10 out of respect for diners’ budgets.

Those restaurants that have joined the challenge have adopted a sense of adventure. “What I’m finding with most Durham chefs, consistent with the Durham characteristic, is that people are willing to try it,” Vlachos said. Hale-Koslowski has been “astounded at what people have tried. ... People are getting very creative.”

They hope the contest not only creates more awareness of vegan and vegetarian offerings. They would like some of the contest recipes become permanent fare at local restaurants, and that someone steps up to start a vegan restaurant.

The contest is already getting some recognition on vegetarian blogs, and they hope it will spread to other communities. “I think it’s a model that people nationally are excited about. It’s a positive way to promote a more diversified cuisine,” Vlachos said.

PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS

Alivia's, 900 W. Main St., 682-8978

Beyu Cafe, 335 W. Main St., 683-1058

Dos Perros, 200 N. Mangum St., 956-2750

The Federal, 914 W. Main St., 680-8611

Nosh, 2812 Erwin Road, Suite 101, 383-4747

Parker and Otis, 112 S. Duke St., 683-3200

Piedmont, 401 Foster Street, 683-1213

Rue Cler, 401 E. Chapel Hill St., 682-8844

Toast, 345 W. Main St., 683-2183

Vin Rouge, 2010 Hillsborough Road, 416-0466