Why French chef Alexis Gauthier turned vegan – and how he’s applying veganism to his fine dining restaurant “In three generations, I really think humans will look back and think, what the f*** were we doing?”

Chef Alexis Gauthier hasn’t always been vegan. He is classically trained – his cookery was forged in pork fat, veal stock and prime ribs. Foie gras too, inevitably. He used to buy and serve 20kg every week at his London restaurant. And he used to eat as most French chefs do, frying hunks of steak and poaching cod.

“When I was 35, I was diagnosed with fatty liver. I had to stop drinking for a year. It was hell. I was a Frenchman unable to enjoy a glass of wine in the evening. It was so hard. Not eating meat is easy”

Now, Gauthier is actively repulsed by meat; the death of animals and what he calls the “savagery”. He believes that killing a pig, a cow, a sea bass or any other creature “with a face” is “cruel and immoral”. And he is making it his mission to use his skill as a chef to encourage others to think again before ordering “death”.

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Gauthier, who has owned and run Gauthier Soho since 2010, is showing people that vegan food can be exciting and sophisticated. The chef has abstained from meat for four years now. He changed his vegetarian tasting menu to vegan a year ago, and has just announced a new dish – ‘faux gras’, a delicate mixture containing lentils, mushrooms, beetroot, walnuts and shallots, blended to form a smooth pâté. Gauthier says that it tastes like the real deal. Many agree. I do.

Vegan tasting menu

“Everyone who dines with us gets it,” Gauthier tells i. “It comes in a little jar, like a traditional pâté, with fat on top. It’s smooth and spreads well on toast. Non-vegans think it’s as good as real pâté”.

This is arguably a faddy move, but it is in cunning and guile that vegans showcase their reasoning to a wider audience. It is like the Impossible Burger (a non-meat burger that “bleeds”), Gauthier says, which he thinks could “change the world”.

“I have had it,” he says. “It tastes incredible – there is texture and meatiness. It is like wagyu. It is in these products that we can show people we don’t need to kill animals. We have everything we need without them.

“In three generations, I really think humans will look back and think, what the f*** were we doing? At the Super Bowl, one billion chicken wings [it is actually more] are eaten – that is 500m chickens dead.

“We have a conscience, and yet we’re killing animals to satiate our desires, excusing ourselves by saying the pleasure is worth the pain and suffering. They feel emotion, they feel love and affection, they know they are about to die – and for what? Why are we doing this? We don’t need to eat meat”.

‘Visual and exploratory food’

Gauthier still serves a standard tasting menu at his Soho restaurant. On it, you may find turbot and pigeon. But he is planning to do away with it for ever. Within 18 months, the chef says that the food he serves will be totally vegan. It would be one of the most high-profile restaurants to do so.

“Vegan food is vibrant and colourful,” he tells i. “It is visual, exploratory. Yes, I have to be more creative – but that’s the excitement in it. You can’t hide with vegan food. You can’t elevate food with butter.”

Gauthier thinks that soon the world will wake up to veganism and follow his lead. He understands the different levels of commitment – flexitarianism is on the rise, many opt for veggie or vegan cooking at home and only eat meat when out. The chef himself allows himself oysters. There are levels, Gauthier says, and oysters are far detached from livestock, game and fish.

“Each person has their set of rules, and that is OK,” he says.

But while he is fully aware of sustainability and the environmental reasoning behind eating less meat, his driver is welfare alone – avoiding the killing of animals. He disputes supposed evidence that veganism is better for the body, too (he has to have vitamin B21, derived from red meat, injected).

“I applaud the younger generations understanding the environment is suffering as a result of meat consumption. But I am vegan because of suffering.”

Gauthier realises that his high-end restaurant is a single cog in a monstrous mechanism. With his vegan menu and plant-based pâté he is merely doing his bit – the likes of McDonald’s and KFC, schools, and the Government will be crucial in paving the way to “murderless” gastronomy en masse.

Last month, Gauthier gave an “impassioned” 30-minute speech at the National Restaurant Congress. He told fellow chefs that veganism is no longer a “fad”, and that anyone who still sees it that way is a “dinosaur, living in denial”.

Meat ‘isn’t worth it’

The Frenchman thinks veganism is a “natural progression”. It will be simplistic social discourse – a keener understanding of our relationship with animals.

“For me, making the transition was easy. I didn’t want f****** veal any longer. Is it comforting? To eat maybe, but it is not worth it.

“When I was 35, I was diagnosed with fatty liver. I had to stop drinking for a year. It was hell. I was a Frenchman unable to enjoy a glass of wine in the evening. It was so hard. Not eating meat is easy”.

Are we really ready? For now, at least in the chef community, Gauthier faces an uphill struggle. There’s a trend to be economical, perhaps efficient with meat and its subsidiaries – at St Leonard’s restaurant, hispi cabbage is dipped in molten pig fat, but the leaves are centre stage; at Salon Brixton, cuttlefish is used sparingly with peas and elderflower. Chantelle Nicholson, of Tredwell’s, has released a vegan cookbook. Gizzi Erskine last year sold vegan “junk food” at the Tate.

Viral pâté

But nearly every other restaurant launch features a fire pit upon which great slabs of beef and pork are cooked.

“Yes, I know it will take time,” Gauthier concedes. “Raymond Blanc was horrified when I said meat will one day be gone forever. He said, ‘No! This cannot happen’.

“But, honestly, I think people will wake up. There’s a reason my faux pâté went viral – why is that? They’re interested. We can’t carry on the way we are. Either we choose, or the world chooses for us.

“I’m excited about a vegan future. A creative one. We are one voice. Look at French fries – everyone, everyone loves French fries. They’re vegan. Let’s celebrate vegetables. It’s their time”.