At her Melbourne restaurant, Smith & Daughters, Shannon Martinez is changing everything you thought you knew about vegan food.
I am perched with my friend Timothy at a window seat at Smith & Daughters, the plant-based restaurant owned by Shannon Martinez and Mo Wyse, peering out onto a wet, shivering Melbourne evening. Despite booking a week in advance, the window was all I could get. We are sipping sharp Italian-New York inspired cocktails and anticipating a feast of faux-carnivorous delights: carpaccio and meatballs for entrée and polenta with beef ragù and chicken schnitzel for the main course. I’m not usually so carcass-oriented, but my friend – a meat-lover – is curious: how could a vegan restaurant have such a meaty menu? Will this be a return to the glutinous horror of the mock duck we pretended to enjoy as failed vegetarians at university? And when vegans say “fake meat” don’t they really mean tofu or bready not-sausages?
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