NYC’s Bourgeois Pig to Become Vegan Tapas Bar

After 12 years, popular New York City restaurant Bourgeois Pig will close this week and reopen as vegan tapas and wine bar Ladybird later in the summer. Vegan restaurateur Ravi DeRossi announced his plan to transform the longstanding cheese-centric restaurant—along with his 15 other New York City holdings—into a vegan eatery in his quest to align his moral beliefs with his business practices. Chef Daphne Cheng—of DeRossi’s first newly veganized restaurant Mother of Pearl—will prepare a plant-based menu of globally inspired tapas with several dairy-free fondues as homage to the restaurant’s history, while famed sommelier Ariel Arce will select a list of accompanying biodynamic wines. “[Bourgeois Pig] uses thousands of pounds of cheese every week,” DeRossi said. While Bourgeois Pig was the first restaurant DeRossi opened, he expressed his satisfaction with the transformation and stated that changing his eatery is “a huge weight off my shoulders.”