For one week, kitchens from Center City to Passayunk, Vegan and Non-Vegan, are serving tasty displays of a vegan variety.
The culinary celebration started in 2018 when Philly Vegan Restaurant Week was founded by Nicole Koedyker and Carmella Lanni in order to promote vegan dishes and the vegan lifestyle.
Lanni says the mission is simple: “We are doing this,to spread awareness as an organization when it comes to veganism and vegan living.”
Joseph Kakley, the manager of the Italian restaurant Barra Rossa, says their establishment joined this year in order to create safe environment for all dining guests.
Barra Rossa is located in Center City near Jefferson University Hospital, 929 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19107
“We wanted to create an environment where omnivores, vegan, vegetarians, pescatarians could come together and have a great time and enjoy good food.”
Kakley who is not a vegan himself made it his personal mission to create the perfect vegan menu:
“A couple months ago i started to try and expand our vegan menu and offer more options and we worked with a lot of surveyors and vendors to create these really good vegan dishes.”
Menu Items like the classic Italian Bruschetta, Vegan “Chicken” Milanese, and Mushroom Ravioli are just a few of the tasty delicacies available for purchase.
Across the city in a small but cozy restaurant, Temple alumni, local vegan, and restaurant manager at Casablanca, MaryAnn Baruki, says promoting dishes that are already vegan is a good way to introduce non-vegans to this culinary lifestyle:
“Realistically, we know we cannot turn the whole world vegan but we can at least do our part to help with lots of tasty vegan options at our restaurant.”
Casablanca, a Moroccan-inspired restaurant, already has a variety of vegan-friendly options on the menu such as stuffed grapes leaves, baba ganoush, roasted eggplant and many other dishes to offer.
Casablanca is located in Passayunk Sqaure, 947 Federal St, Philadelphia, PA 19147.
With the growing number of people identifying as vegan, Lanni hopes that restaurants will continue to offer more vegan options permanently.
“To understand that its not a fleeting thing for many of us, yeah we are not making this crushing dent but we are building some significance in various parts of this country and then the world.”
Around 5 to 7 percent of the United States identify as vegan, which is about 10 million. In the world there are almost 100 million vegans, which is only 1 percent of the global population.
Philly Vegan Restaurant Week runs from October 25th to November 3rd with over 18 restaurants participating this week all across the city, each restaurant will serve a variety of meals at a fixed price.
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