When I was a child, in 1970s America, vegetarian restaurants were scarce. At best, one might get a patty of assorted beans and sprouts in the back of a local health food store, behind the endless rows of brown plastic pill bottles. I had a vegetarian neighbor who frequented these health establishments. She had long blond hair and I was fascinated by her shoes — sturdy leather sandals with soles dotted by hard plastic pegs. She rarely spoke to me, but I liked the way she would break open soft capsules of Vitamin E oil and slather it on her heels and elbows. Her home always smelled of seaweed, which she tried to feed me once. I declined.
The aesthetic of vegetarianism has come a long way. In the last couple decades, as pressure point shoes fell out of fashion, interested cooks began to focus on the “food” in the “vegetarian food” and less so on the “vegetarian.” Amanda Cohen, the chef and creator of Dirt Candy, a new vegetarian restaurant in the East Village, puts it well. She has no interest in running a restaurant that is “lifestyle-driven, not chef-driven.” “I don’t care about your health,” Cohen says. “And I don’t care about your politics either.” In placing Dirt Candy beyond health and politics, Cohen allows herself to get to the business of cooking. She is compelled by a real love of vegetables and a passion to move them from the side of the plate to the center.
My favorite dish on the Dirt Candy menu was the first, a Snack course of Jalapeno Hush Puppies with maple butter. The hush puppies were lightly fried; the diced jalapenos dotting the inside added a spicy freshness. The hush puppies were tasty enough without the maple butter but adding a hefty smear of the sweet cream felt naughty and, once tried, it became hard to stop. I moved on to Portobello mousse with fennel pear compote and shaved shitake mushrooms. The mousse in this dish was flavorful and complex, presented as a nifty, perfectly smooth taupe cube. Unfortunately, the compote didn’t do much more than look pretty and add a little sweetness. My husband devoured his Stone Ground Grits, and we were both impressed with the Tempura Poached Egg on top, a fried little wonder that was the final blow to my husband’s vest buttons.
The dish I felt most compelled to order was the Carrot Risotto with carrot dumplings and carrot curls, which chef Cohen describes as “the crystal meth of carrots.” Indeed, this was the most carrot-intense dish I’ve ever had, a heavy risotto cooked in carrot broth, topped with a mountain of deep-fried carrot shavings, with dense, unfilled carrot dumplings in the shape of carrot slices on the side. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as exhausted by the taste of a single vegetable. This dish was not meant to be a light, refreshing vegetable course but rather a tasty load of starch-indulgence, a reminder of the carrot’s secret identity as a sugary carbload. We finished off with Ricotta Fritters with Green Tomato Marmalade and Lemon Olive Oil Ice Cream, and a surprisingly whimsical Popcorn Pudding with Hazelnut Caramel Corn, chewing to the rhythms of smooth lounge electronica.
Dirt Candy shuffles off the trappings of restaurant-as-health food store/anarchist bookstore with great success. Aside from its name, there aren’t any signs that make you feel like you’re in a vegetarian restaurant. Notably, Chef Cohen is not even a vegetarian herself — she just really likes to cook vegetables and wants to lure people of all diets into her camp. In this, Dirt Candy is a bit like a gay bar run by a straight man, designed to be a bar like any other, but, you know, where mostly guys hang out. Dirt Candy positions itself confidently within the milieu of New York’s midrange haute cuisine restaurants, with tasty food that just happens to be vegetarian.
And sadly, this is also why Dirt Candy lacks distinction. I must admit that had I not gone there with the intention of writing about it, I would have walked right past the spare, halogen-lit storefront. With its pictureless Kirei wood and Plexi walls, simple white tableware, and stainless steel accents, Dirt Candy achieves its goal of focusing the visitor on the food rather than on the beliefs of the chef. Yet the place goes so far as to lack any personality at all, save a vague pretentiousness. In 2009, many (if not most) vegetarian restaurants now eschew the nutty-crunchy aesthetic. And as the chef herself admits, some of the best vegetarian food is found in non-vegetarian restaurants. So the question is: If the food is good but lacking excellence, the price not cheap, the atmosphere generic, what should compel me to go to Dirt Candy over and over in the way that I consistently crave the green curry at Sripraphai or the simple charms of a Mamoun’s falafel?
The answer lies in the accessibility of the experience. Like pro-gay marriage advocates, who are taking gay culture out of the gay bar and into the mainstream, I applaud and defend the way Dirt Candy replaces hippie feet with hip sensibility. Vegetables are wonderful — why shouldn’t they be allowed to take center stage instead of being forced to sit on the sidelines, in the fringe establishments of the flavor-challenged, determined by politics, and served with a side order of apologies?
And yet, let us not forget that vegetables are just food. Perhaps the need for vegetarians to put them forth as extraordinary is overcompensating. Most people, when they go out to eat, aren’t looking to have their belief systems challenged, nor do they need every meal to taste like it was prepared by Ferran Adrià. By catering to people who simply want a nice meal at a chic restaurant, Dirt Candy promotes the normalization of vegetarian cuisine. Maybe it will inspire an increasing variety of mainstream vegetarian restaurants. Vegetarian fast food. Vegetarian greasy spoons. Vegetarian Irish pubs and Wall Street business lunches. Sometimes, allowing the marginal to be normal is itself an extraordinary act.
Stefany Anne Golberg is an artist, writer, musician, and professional dilettante. She's a founding member of the art collective Flux Factory and lives in New York City. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Dirt Candy photographs from Jason Perlow (Creative Commons), “Veg-o-matic” photograph by Eric Tucker/Getty Images; "Plate" photograph from FoodCollection/Getty Images
