Golden Globes Go Vegan: We Want to "Send a Good Message"

The awards show's first-ever plant-based menu is part of a larger sustainability push by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

The Golden Globes is 86’ing the awards-circuit chicken dinner.

As part of its sustainability efforts, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will be serving a plant-based meal at the Golden Globes on Jan. 5, making it likely the first major awards show to go all-vegan. The menu is a last-minute change from a menu previewed in December that included fish. The new menu includes an appetizer of chilled golden beet soup with locally grown chervil and amaranth and a main dish of king oyster mushrooms cooked and presented to call to mind scallops, with wild-mushroom risotto, roasted baby purple and green brussels sprouts, globe carrots and pea tendrils.

"We had the menu with fish. Then we got together with the HFPA and they wanted to make this change to send a good message. It’s definitely the first Golden Globes that has gone vegan," says Beverly Hilton executive chef and sustainability champion Matthew Morgan, who got a call from the HFPA just a few days before Christmas with news of the planned switch. Morgan’s vegan dessert “is a take on an opera cake.”

The HFPA is also planning to reuse this year’s new red carpet at other events and, to reduce plastic waste, has a partnership with Icelandic Glacial to serve water in glass bottles (a year after the appearance of Fiji Water Girl). "The climate crisis is surrounding us and we were thinking about the new year and the new decade. So we started talking between us about what we can do to send a signal," says HFPA president Lorenzo Soria, who did a last-minute tasting on Dec. 30. "We don’t think we'll change the world with one meal, but we decided to take small steps to bring awareness. The food we eat, the way it is processed and grown and disposed of, all of that contributes to the climate crisis."

The proof, though, will be in the flavors. Morgan says he was a bit daunted creating a risotto “without Parmesan” cheese for Soria. “He’s Italian. So he was a little bit skeptical that we could pull it off.”

Soria’s take: “I have to say it’s delicious.”

A version of this story first appeared in the Jan. 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.