Why Michelin Chef Alexis Gauthier Refuses to Put Meat Back on the Menu

Keeping a fine-dining restaurant afloat is no easy job. Just watch The Bear for more proof of that statement—there’s a reason restaurant workers and chefs have called the FX series one of the most relatable portrayals of the industry. Keeping a plant-based fine dining restaurant alive seems to be even more challenging. That’s why, in a bid to keep the doors of New York’s Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park open, esteemed chef Daniel Humm recently implied he had no choice but to put meat back on the menu.

But not every top chef shares his view. Fellow Michelin-starred chef Alexis Gauthier, who owns Gauthier Soho, 123V, and Studio Gauthier, all in London, has been through his fair share of heartache. In 2012, he lost his share in another London restaurant, Roussillon, when it ran into financial trouble, and despite vowing to buy it back, the doors remained closed.

Alexis Gauthier

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Gauthier can identify with Humm; he understands the challenges of the restaurant industry. And like the New York-based chef, Gauthier’s animal-based dishes used to be some of his biggest sellers. But in 2016, he removed meat from the menu, and he has recently reassured patrons that it’s not coming back.

Why Alexis Gauthier won’t cook with meat again

“For years, I built my career on dishes that dazzled. I earned applause, accolades, and respect,” Gauthier wrote in a recent open letter in collaboration with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals published in Harper’s Magazine. “But behind every standing ovation was a silence I refused to hear—the silence of suffering, of animals turned into ingredients, of pain plated as art.”

Gauthier Soho

One of Gauthier’s most popular dishes was foie gras, made from the fatty livers of ducks and geese. In fact, the top London chef used to serve around 44 pounds of the dish every week. But when he learned the industry is associated with force-feeding practices and a monumental environmental impact, he decided faux gras was the way forward.

For Gauthier, there’s one key motivating factor that means foie gras will never make it back onto any of his menus: guilt.

“I profited from lives that were not mine to take,” he wrote. “I built prestige on the backs of beings who had no voice in the transaction. And worst of all, I silenced the small voice in me that always questioned it—smothered it under demi-glace and truffle foam.”

He’s not alone. When VegNews spoke to vegan restaurant owners earlier this year, many discussed the ongoing struggles in the industry, but no one mentioned adding animal products to the menu as a last-ditch effort to stay afloat.

“If you are a chef, a cook, a creator—if you feel the flicker of discomfort when you prep a foie gras torchon or break down a crate of lobsters—know this: that flicker is a flame. Don’t smother it,” continues Gauthier. “There is no more time to wait. The animals cannot wait. The planet cannot wait. And your own soul—however buried beneath the rituals of service and tradition—cannot wait.”