Vegan Burger Gets Big Thumbs Up from Men’s Health

Men’s Health writer Concetta Smith recently visited Michelin-starred New York City restaurant Saxon + Parole for the sole purpose of determining whether the vegan Impossible Burger stood up to its meat-based counterpart. Smith said the burger—which she ordered with just ketchup on a (non-vegan) challah bun—was akin to “the taste profile of a hearty hamburger,” and concluded that, “unless you plate it up alongside an Angus burger, it’s pretty hard to distinguish the difference.” The restaurant’s executive chef Brad Farmerie revealed that he has enjoyed the versatility of the new plant-based burger. “A lot of people assume that vegetarian dishes don’t have the depth of flavor, richness, variety of textures, and umami that meat-based dishes have,” Farmerie told Smith. “It’s my job as a chef to present unique options like Impossible Burger in a way that wasn’t just edible, but memorable.” The company behind Impossible Burger—Silicon Valley-based Impossible Foods—recently began construction on an Oakland, CA large-scale production facility which will produce 1 million pounds of the burger monthly, helping Impossible Foods bring its breakthrough burger to 1,000 restaurants by the end of the year.