NEW YORK — Most culinary mushrooms are grown indoors for sustainable year-round commercial production and mass consumption.
But for his acclaimed Le Bernardin restaurant in Manhattan, celebrated chef Eric Ripert plays with wild mushrooms and other edible fungi — like black truffle, candy caps, chanterelle, hen of the woods, porcini and morels — prized for their seasonal exclusivity.
“We create dishes that pay homage to those ingredients. It’s a celebration of those products. We’re not using those mushrooms to make fake something,” Ripert said Sept. 7 at the Plant Based World Expo in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. “It’s not necessarily for a fake burger … but it could be, if it’s really good.”
Ripert was likely the most well-known panelist at the expo session, “Meat Mushrooms, Your New Center of the Plate Protein,” which explored mushrooms’ versatility as foodservice items and minimally processed consumer packaged goods, or CPG.
Learn on PMG: Mushrooms
He’s chef and co-founder of the acclaimed Le Bernardin, a French, seafood-focused restaurant in Midtown Manhattan that has consistently earned three Michelin stars since 2005, has been named one of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants from 2006 to today and was honored as La Liste’s No.1 Restaurant in the World in 2023. Among other accolades, he’s a James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef and author of three cookbooks, including two New York Times bestsellers.
Moderated by Benjamin Davis, vice president of content for Plant Based World Expo, the session focused on which mushrooms are the meatiest and how to satisfy plant-curious consumers with this whole-food meat alternative. Insights also came from chef Stephany Burgos, executive culinary leader of New York’s Planta restaurants featuring 100% plant-based menus; Danielle Schwab from Fable Foods, which makes food products from the shiitake mushrooms’ dense, fleshy fibers and umami flavors; and SarahMarie Cole, chief marketing officer of MyForest Foods, which makes bacon from the mycelium byproduct of mushrooms.
The elephant in the room was the growing consumer demand for minimally processed or whole foods as plant-based protein or center-plate options — and the proliferation of meat imitations that the plant-based industry makes.
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“The sensitive subject for plant-based companies is the ingredient deck, the nutrition label,” Schwab said. Like. Most meat alternatives, Fable Foods products require a binder, and theirs is 3% soy, she said, which adds a lot of protein. And protein is what consumers are seeking in alternatives, although it’s not as necessary as the public would think, she said.
“It’s about really looking about what nutritional deficiencies we have in America,” Schwab said. “We do not have a protein deficiency. We do have fiber deficiencies.”
Davis agreed. The concept of “center of plate protein” doesn’t mean you have a 1-to-1 match of the protein content, he said.
“Really, you’re trying to match the taste functionality,” Davis said. “Include some protein, and what you surround it with becomes really important, because if you put the right grains and vegetables around it, you’re adding nutrition.”
Using the brined mycelium of oyster mushrooms, MyForest is making “mushbelly” in place of porkbelly, Cole said.
“I think we’re at the beginning of building an entire category at retail and foodservice,” Cole said. “It really is a ‘full plate’ as we learn all the ways we can incorporate fungi, more than ‘center of the plate.’”
Davis asked a question from New York Times food writer Florence Fabricant, who was supposed to moderate but canceled for a family emergency. She wanted to know, in light of the portabella mushroom as the past vegetarian center-plate star, is the mushroom in danger of losing its identity?
“From a culinary aspect, it’s within us to explore all the ways you can use one ingredient, giving us a wider scope,” Burgos said. “I don’t think it’s really hijacked. If anything, we’re giving its identity more space and a wider audience.”
The panelists said that there is still so much we don’t know about mushrooms.
They’re not a vegetable; they’re not an animal; it’s its own entity,” Burgos said. “Lions mane mushrooms are absolutely delicious. It has a lot of health benefits: mental, immunity. We’re just scratching the surface of getting more visibility for mushrooms.”
The key is to attract consumers who aren’t eschewing meat altogether.
Ripert tries to inspire people to eat outside their typical repertoire at Le Bernardin.
“I don’t think we should be so drastic as saying, ‘There are people who eat meat, and there are people who eat vegetables, and there is no in-between,’” he said.
“We change the menu and put a lot of effort into it. Today, we have clientele who come to us for our vegetarian options. By not going extreme — not completely seafood or completely plant-based — we can inspire them to try something new.”