Tal Ronnen had one aim when he opened Crossroads restaurant on Melrose in 2013. He wanted to “make plant-based food sexy."
Eleven years later, it seems he’s done just that. The upscale plant-based Mediterranean restaurant has become popular with foodies, businesspeople, celebrities and rock stars. Travis Barker is a co-owner and the greater Kardashian clan are regulars. It’s the kind of place Paul McCartney takes Dolly Parton out to dinner.
Two years ago, Ronnen opened two restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip, and an outpost at The Commons at Calabasas. (Now presumably the Kardashians can eat all their meals there without having to travel over the hill).
When they first opened their doors in March 2013, Ronnen says “there was no fine dining plant-based food. So many vegan places just didn’t have a theme, they’d be a hodgepodge — it never made sense to me why you’d eat miso soup and nachos in the same meal,” he says.
Ronnen says his goal was “to create plant-based food in a really elevated environment. Something new and fresh for L.A.”
“We designed it to look like an Upper West Side steakhouse with the banquettes and booths and the chandeliers. We were the first to do white tablecloths, the first to have a full bar and extensive wine program,” he remembers.
Ronnen grew up as a “steak-lover” who eventually decided to adopt a vegan diet. He had trouble finding plant-based options that could compete with his own cravings for meat and dairy. In this pursuit, he realized that if he applied traditional French culinary techniques, he could make meals any eater would find satisfying.
He wrote a bestselling cookbook, The Conscious Cook, which led Ronnen to a new status — he made appearances on Ellen, developed Oprah’s vegan cleanse, and even chef’d a dinner for the U.S. Senate. A bonafide celebrity chef.
“We never use the word 'vegan' on the menu. We’ve always played in the traditional culinary world. That’s always been my goal. I want to cook for non-vegans. I want to cook for people who could benefit from eating this way,” says Ronnen.
Over the years I’ve dabbled in plant-based eating. I spent most of college working in the kitchen of the UC Davis Coffee House, so I became familiar with the wonders of bread bowls of veggie chili and peanut butter broccoli tofu.
But my wife Maureen went fully vegan in the 12th grade. In those days she says “everyone I hung out with was vegan.” This meant going to Tanya’s house for Afrocaribbean casamientos, getting Tofurky and Tofutti from Trader Joe's, or asking her mom to make plant-based banchans like seasoned soybean sprouts or spicy cucumber salads.
But when Maureen started college at UC San Diego in the fall of 2001, she found very few options for vegan students. In the dining hall she would exclusively eat hummus and mustard sandwiches with all the vegetables — and each time she ordered it a different employee would be like, “What? You’re not even getting cheese?”
Maureen says that’s “how foreign vegan dining was at the time, outside of the Valley." By the end of her freshman year, without any nourishing plant-based options, she had to give up on being vegan.
So when we finally ate at Crossroads on Melrose last summer, two decades later, what a thrill — sitting in at a fine-dining establishment in front of an array of expertly-crafted Mediterranean dishes that just happened to be vegan.
We were blown away. Maureen loved the stuffed zucchini blossoms filled with a ricotta alternative. I was a huge fan of the perfectly crispy Aleppo pepper/cumin/turmeric seasoned Impossible meat-filled cigars dipped in a spicy almond milk yogurt. Ronnen learned this recipe from his Moroccan nanny, who he says “ left a culinary impression on me, for sure.”
This was the best meal I ate last year. I can’t stop thinking about it. I think what makes a great meal in Los Angeles has to be a combination of things: the deliciousness of the food, the quality of the company, the customer service, and I guess at the overall vibe of the experience. I also think there should be a transcendent moment during the course of the meal that changes how you think about food going forward.
And that honestly happened that night, while I was eating the cheese plate. I took a bite of the camembert, made by the New York-based company Rind, and I felt my glands swell. An instinctual swallow as my body remembered my dairy allergy.
I then realized this was non-dairy naturally fermented nut-based cheese, not something that might interrupt my future plans. I could sit here and savor all those unique notes that I’ve come to love about fine cheeses, without the bellyaches. It was a revelation.
Ronnen understands what makes good cheese, and has now parlayed that into the brand Kite Hill, which he co-founded, a purveyor of vegan cheeses, dips, and pastas you can now find in most grocery stores.
Kite Hill approaches cheesemaking in a traditional artisanal way. They first make non-dairy milk and combine it with proprietary cultures and enzymes. These curds are then brined and aged in rooms calibrated specifically to the kind of cheese they are producing.
Ronnen excitedly tells me “we were the first non-dairy cheese to appear in Whole Foods’ cheese department, not just the vegan aisle.”
With more options out there than ever before, Ronnen says the popularity of a vegan diet isn’t going anywhere. “Atkins turned into South Beach and then keto and now paleo — these are just fad diets that have faded out. That’s not really the case of veganism. It keeps growing.”
Ronnen is seeing plant-based options in places he wouldn't normally expect. “I'm doing the menu at The Magic Castle — the type of old-school Hollywood institution that’s been around for 50 years. But they’re seeing that it’s good practice to provide vegan options.”
“That’s the kind of stuff that’s exciting me, everyday chefs and establishments seeing that it’s good business to accommodate all diners and have something really decent on the menu.”
I’m not sure if I’m ready to go fully vegan, there are too many restaurants that I haven’t eaten at in the world. But I’m down to be flex. Ronnen says the popularity of veganism is that “you don’t have to be 100% plant-based all the time," he says, “or as Mark Bittman says ‘be vegan 9-5 and eat whatever you want after.”
Hey, we can do that.
As Maureen and I drove through Beverly Hills back over Coldwater Canyon into the San Fernando Valley, we calculated that Chef Ronnen’s Calabasas location was only 18 minutes from our house. We high-fived at a stoplight — perfect location for future fancy plant-based date nights.
