This New York City Restaurant Makes Refined Vegan French Cuisine Possible

As Julia Child, one of the chefs credited for introducing complex and dynamic French cuisine to America, once said: “In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.”

The birthplace of haute cuisine, France is known for using liberal amounts of butter in their cooking, as well as for centering many of their most famed dishes around meat, such as traditional cassoulet, coq au vin, beef bourguignon, and everybody’s favorite meal to squeal over, escargot (snails).

If you are interested in eating a plant-based diet but think that might mean you can never enjoy classic French cuisine again, we have excellent news for you. There exists in the heart of New York City’s West Village an authentically French restaurant that serves up all of the nation’s beloved classic dishes — only 100 percent plant-based.

Delice & Sarrasin (which translates from French to “Delicious and Buckwheat”, the name of the flour used to prepare savory crêpes, specializes in totally vegan French cooking and offers its patrons traditionally meat and dairy-heavy mainstays such as vegan crêpes, galettes, and even escargot.

Model and economics major, Christophe Caron, runs Delice & Sarrasin with his mother, head-chef Yvette, and father, Patrick. Together the family has created a dynamic vegan menu that covers all the classic French necessities: there’s a raw and gluten-free vegan cheese plate, which features a combination of vegan artisan cashew-based cultured cheeses served with bread, a “Poulet Basquaise”, which is a dish of vegan chicken legs slowly cooked with vegan chorizo, melted peppers, onions, and tomatoes served with couscous, and even beef bourguignon, a stew with “beef: marinated in red wine and spices, pearl onion, carrots, and fingerling potatoes.

If we had it our way, we’d begin our meal at Delice & Sarrasin with some of this gooey, vegan brie.

Not in New York? You Can Make Your Own Vegan French Food at Home!

Even if you can’t make it to Delice & Sarrasin in person, you don’t have to give up decadent and indulgent French food if you’re following a plant-based diet. We browsed through our Food Monster App to bring you some of our favorite vegan French recipes. Let us know if you try any of them out!

This Ratatouille With Cashew Cheese recipe by Emilie Heck is a classic Provencal French dish filled with veggies.

Zucchini, eggplant, yellow squash, and bell peppers are stewed in savory tomato sauce to bring this dish to life. This particular recipe elevates the presentation and flavor by adding a delicious herbed cashew cheese and arranging the vegetables in a spiral shape. It looks fancy, but this dish is very inexpensive and easy-to-make!

This Tempeh and Mushroom Bourguignon by Philipp Ertl is warm, cozy, and extremely rich in flavor and very versatile.

And don’t forget to end your meal with one of these delicious Crêpes With Chocolate Hazelnut Spread by Annie Oliverio.

Make your own Nutella by toast whole hazelnuts and melting some vegan, grain-sweetened chocolate and soy milk together! This concoction is a little thicker and crunchier than the name brand (and it also has dark chocolate, not that wimpy milk chocolate stuff), and the distinctive flavor of the hazelnuts really comes through. Use exactly as you would the store-bought stuff.

If you’re interested in continuing to cook vegan French cuisine, then we highly recommend downloading our Food Monster App, which is available for both Android and iPhone, and can also be found on Instagram and Facebook. The app has more than 8,000 plant-based, allergy-friendly recipes, and subscribers gain access to ten new recipes per day. Check it out!

All image source: Delice & Sarrasin/Facebook