His mission is two-fold: Establish raw foodism as a respected

Transcription

1 Matthew Kenney If you re one of those people who still views raw food as glorified lawn clippings, you must not have met Chef Matthew Kenney yet. To devotees of the vegan/raw food movement, Kenney is something of a hero. He s authored 10 cookbooks, opened culinary academies in Oklahoma City and Santa Monica, California, developed a food lab in Maine, and even delivered a couple of TED talks. A classically-trained chef and graduate of the French Culinary Institute, Kenney spent years manning hot stoves in some of New York City s best kitchens in the 90s. When he discovered raw eating i.e., food that s not heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit he re-dedicated his career to the nascent movement. His mission is two-fold: Establish raw foodism as a respected

2 global cuisine and spread the gospel of healthy foods to home cooks. At M.A.K.E., Kenney s Santa Monica restaurant affiliated with his cooking school, his modernist techniques transform the lowliest veggies into four-star wonders. Raw dilettantes can try their hand at his dishes through the Matthew Kenney Academy Online, a classically-structured online cooking school that s centered on raw techniques. There s also Matthew Kenney s Raw Express, a new ipad app with 40-plus recipes that you can get on the table in 30 minutes or less, and his companion iphone app, Everyday Raw Detox. Kenney stopped by Soho House West Hollywood on March 13 to share an exquisite raw tasting menu with members and show off a few clever techniques. House Seven caught up with him afterward to chat about his new restaurant and book projects and his goal to eliminate obesity in America through education. You entered the food world in New York s sink-or-swim restaurant scene. What s the biggest you learned from that experience that you apply to your career today? I guess my biggest takeaway is that, as a chef, an educator, and someone in hospitality, we re not just here to feed and entertain people. I believe we re also here to nourish them. So everything I do, whether it s through books or restaurants or events, is to improve the way people eat. Not only in terms of enjoying their food and flavor but improving their health and the sustainability of the food culture in general. It s hard to sway carnivores hearts and minds until they experience how raw food can transform one s body. How did you feel once you started eating a clean, raw diet? I had slowly been changing my diet anyway before I even heard of raw food. I was eating more and more plant-based meals. And I had a break in my career, not by choice, but I over-expanded and had to basically start over. I took that opportunity to really focus on what I cared about, which was health and yoga and nutrition and exercise. It was then that somebody introduced me to raw food. I thought immediately that if somebody could do this in a more contemporary way it would be hugely popular. So I tried it out in my own personal life and noticed almost

3 immediate changes. Increased energy, better digestion, and more clarity. And just this connection to the earth. I m not a hippie nothing against hippies, but I m a pretty mainstream person. I like fashion and art and contemporary design. But this was so grounding. You ve had a big presence on both the coasts but decided to open up an academy in Oklahoma City. Why go to the Great Plains? Well, we actually miscalculated. We believed that by being in the middle we would get students and clientele from the East and West Coast, that they would come to the middle. That didn t happen so much because New Yorkers and Californians are going to think, Well, why would I go to Oklahoma? Whereas students from South Korea and Tokyo and literally 40 different countries flocked to Oklahoma City. We had a class last year of 16 students in Oklahoma from 14 countries: Egypt, Slovenia, literally from everywhere. It really gave us a chance to get our curriculum organized a place where housing was more affordable for our students and get everything running properly before we took it to a more intense market like California. We ve had students from 17 years old to 75 years old. We have people who own restaurants in their own countries. We had a housewife from Zambia whose husband was running for president in Zambia. There s no one student profile. It s really broad. Why is education so important to you? We go through school as kids and we learn the capital of every state in the country, which I question some of the benefit of that throughout our lives, and yet we don t understand how our own bodies work. We re given foods that go against the well-functioning body. We don t learn how to cook, and the majority of people eat at home every day. People end up cooking for families of three or five or seven without ever having the skills and the background and the understanding of feeding people for their longevity and their health. Schools need to embrace this on a higher level and parents do too. There s a very limited amount of focus on healthier foods. Chefs have a big part of it. They make the food taste good and then it s like a drug. We re trying to make it taste good and be like a drug but also be healthy. That s what I m trying to get my students to understand. You can attract people through the endorphins and the buzz they re going to get from feeling good.

4 What do you see as the next frontier in raw foods? Well, the first few years I was in raw food I was taking more of an all-ornothing approach. That s what made raw food challenging for people early on. They felt that, if they had a toasted seed, that would break their diet. We re really working hard to just define raw food as just another cuisine, just like Japanese food is a cuisine or Tex-Mex is a cuisine. Raw food is something that anybody who cares about their health can incorporate into their diet. Just including a green juice in your diet, that s raw food and that s life-changing. Or eating raw one day a week, having a raw meal, or going to a raw restaurant. We really work hard to create raw food that can stand up to any great cuisine in the world. We re focusing a lot of modernist techniques and contemporary food pairings and recipes to bring it to the mainstream. To do events like we did at Soho House, which, I don t think you probably would have seen raw food at a place like Soho House 8 or 10 years ago. Is there a particular recipe you use to introduce people to initially to remove the barrier to entry to raw foods? It used to be the heirloom tomato lasagna. Now I like people to try our kimchi dumplings with sesame foam. That s really such a beautiful dish the people are surprised when they learn what it is. For someone who wants to get into raw cooking, what are some basic tools you d recommend? Just a really good blender, a high-speed one like a Blendtec. A lot of recipes might have nuts or seeds or young coconut. All the sauces, instead of being reductions, they re often blended liquids together. You have to use a high-speed blender for the fiber and the weight of what you re blending but also the amount of blending that s actually taking place to get a better texture. It seems like we re seeing coconut everywhere these days, from water to the meat. Should more people be incorporating more of it into their meals? I think people should be eating more healthy fats in general. People are so shy about fats. I used to be more of the typical lean protein, low fat, not too much bread kind of person. Kind of the typical New York diet. Then I started eating much, much more of these fats. I eat an entire

5 avocado every day and I incorporate coconut every day. Almond butter, macadamia nuts, and seeds these healthy fats are just incredible. You just feel so much better internally. It s better for our digestive system, our skin and our hair, and all of our cells. Are there any spring vegetables you re looking forward to using? Asparagus is great. We just put a new dish on our menu at M.A.K.E. It s like a smoked trumpet royal mushroom with asparagus and a spicy mustard broth. It s very cool looking. It s springy but very substantial as well. When you re not at M.A.K.E., where do you like to eat in LA? I live in Venice so I spend a lot of time at Gjelina [you can add owned by Travis Lett which is right down the street from my home. They have a lot of plant-based options. I ll sometimes go to Café Gratitude for a casual vegan meal. In the summertime I love to go to Capo for this heirloom tomato-based dish they have. I eat out a lot, last week I went to Spago and Ink. How about in New York? So many favorites in New York. I love Balaboosta. I like ABC Kitchen. I love Il Buco on Bond Street. I like [Estiatorio] Milos. My favorite restaurant has always been Elio s on the Upper East Side classic Northern Italian standby. I have so many in New York, it s hard to choose! What s on your radar for the rest of the year? I feel like I m doing as much as I can handle. We have a big project opening in Miami next year and that will be my focus along with Santa Monica in The Miami project will be a beautiful restaurant, an indoor/outdoor space with a culinary school as well. It will be the first of its kind in Miami and really be one of the premier plant-based restaurants in the world because of its physical space, really cool and modern. I also launched an online culinary school a couple months ago and we re continuing to grow programs on there to add nutrition, sports medicine and so forth. The other big thing next year is starting to bring nutrition into our curriculum and the work we re doing. I also have

6 another book coming out at the end of the year. That s going to be a beautiful book I m doing with our corporate chef, Scott Winegard. It s going to include a lot of these techniques that you and I have been talking about today. You also released another book, Everyday Raw Detox, this month. Yes, I was a co-author but she was the lead author on that book. It was really her vision on that particular book. And I ll be doing more of that which is really the next few years for me. I ll be more of a supporter for projects. I m backing a juice bar that s opening on the East Coast this summer. It s not about me or my company, I m just helping. That s the long-term goal to be a supporter of the young, innovative ideas that will bring healthier cuisine out there. For more information, visit matthewkenneycuisine.com.