It’s not an exaggeration to say that Makini Howell is one of the most acclaimed vegan chefs on the West Coast. Before it shuttered in 2025, she was the brains behind Seattle’s beloved plant-based hotspot Plum Bistro. Shortly after, she opened her own tofu company in the city.
But according to Howell, who is also a private chef, one of the most defining moments of her career was cooking for Stevie Wonder on tour in 2014 and 2015.
“I learned how to be a really good cook,” she told Milk Street in 2022. “I was a chef when I left [that tour].”
Howell explained that she had to cook everything for Wonder, who has followed a plant-based diet for health reasons for most of his life.
Makini Howell
How Stevie Wonder helped shape Makini Howell’s career
“You learn how to cook when you are on a tour like that, especially when you’re an individual’s personal chef,” she added. “So I had to cook breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks—I had to do beverages and teas. After I left that tour, I could teach you how to be vegan for the rest of your life, if that’s what you wanted.”
In a way, Howell does exactly that. She is an established cookbook author and has released multiple titles, including 2024’s Simple Goodness and 2023’s Makini’s Vegan Kitchen. The former features a foreword from Wonder himself: “Makini’s cooking will excite and satisfy you,” he wrote. “Makini can teach you how to become vegan for the rest of your life if you desire. Her ways should be passed on from generation to generation, for generations to come.”
According to Howell, Wonder had a varied diet on tour. She cooked the musical icon everything from French toast and scrambles to tofu satay, grains, and legumes. The chef also experimented with tofu bacon by marinating the tofu in dressings made from vinegar, stone-ground mustard, and fresh herbs.
“When you have to cook for somebody every day, you really understand how to create variety and a satisfying meal every day,” she explained, before adding: “I would assume it’s like when you have a family, and you cook every day. You know it’s fuel. And so, it has to taste good and has to feel good. It has to hit the spot and it has to you have to be all of those things.”
Today, you can sample Howell’s cooking through her tofu brand, Makini’s, which offers everything from Southern fried tofu to Tofustrami. After all, if it’s good enough for Stevie Wonder, it’s probably worth a try.
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Charlotte is a VegNews editor and writer based in sunny Southsea on England's southern coast.
