Heavily spiced steak tartare; duck in a red wine jus; entrecôte with a mustard topping and a side of potato dauphinoise; coq au vin. Perhaps more than croissants and tarte au citron, French cuisine is famous for sauce-laden dishes of meat, which is why vegetarians often view a trip to Paris as a week filled with goat’s-cheese salads and daily trips to the Rue des Rosiers for yet another falafel.

But to the benefit of our waistlines, our wallets, our planet, and of course our palates (this is France, after all), a number of Parisian chefs have taken the somewhat controversial step of swapping meat for marrows and mushrooms.

It likely all began with the two Alains: Ducasse and Passard. Both are household names in France and won back or maintained their third Michelin stars for their restaurants (Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée and L’Arpège, respectively) after exorcising red meat and poultry from their tasting menus. Creating exquisite courses out of little more than spinach, leeks, nuts, and truffles not only redefined how we think about French cuisine, it was also the ultimate test of their talents.

“It was the most difficult thing I have ever done,” says Ducasse. “Animal fat is already so filled with flavor that you don’t have to do much to make it delicious, but vegetables, they have to have love and attention if they are going to be the star of your plate. You see, vegetables do not start sexy, they require work to become that way.”

And while perhaps half of the population of California would vehemently disagree with him, it turns out that broccoli, kale, and sweet potatoes do need more than a spiralizer or a cold-press juicer to make us talk about them in the hushed tones we usually reserve for oysters and wagyu beef. They need the French touch.

Because where the Alains led, the rest of the city soon followed, with everyone from Éric Briffard, executive chef and culinary arts director of Le Cordon Bleu Paris, and the famous Joël Robuchon to Christophe Moret at the Shangri-La Hotel, Paris and Thierry Marx at the Mandarin Oriental Paris halving their butcher’s inventory so that they could place a heavy emphasis on all things green. And as a result smaller brasseries and bistros also started rewriting their menus, changing Parisians’ perceptions of what it means to have a vegetable-based diet.