Vegan Evangelist: Chef Tanya Petrovna is on a Mission to Deliver Delicious Meatless Eats
Despite the upturned noses of classmates, as a child Chef Tanya Petrovna brought sautéed spinach and mushrooms to school for lunch. Not until she ate dinner at a friend’s home did she understand why spinach had earned such an unfortunate reputation among her peers.
“I soon realized why the other kids didn’t like the vegetable, because my friend’s mom warmed spinach from a can and served it without any seasoning,” says the founder and executive chef of the premier vegan restaurant Native Foods Café, who stood on a stool in her own home and rinsed the spinach and mushrooms so that her mother could sauté the produce in garlic and olive oil.
Gourmet Roots
Such was the upbringing of Petrovna, who grew up in Palm Springs and inherited her appetite for fresh, wholesome, homemade food from her parents — immigrants from Europe.
“My father was a maître de for prestigious restaurants, and my mother worked in food service on a part-time basis and cooked full-time at home,” says Petrovna, who has been featured on the Food Network and is author of two cookbooks, including The Native Foods Restaurant Cookbook (2003).
“Mom shopped every day and cooked fresh meals, making Julia Child look like Taco Bell,” says Petrovna. “She was ahead of her time in the kitchen, going beyond French and experimenting with a wide variety of cuisines, including Chinese.” For Petrovna, time around the family dinner table involved lively discussions about food. “My father would throw out ideas, and Mom would take them and create something the next day,” she says.
Vegan Beginnings
As a child and teenager, Petrovna also felt an affinity with animals that led to her becoming vegan at the age of 18. “In junior high school, I read an article about cruelty to whales and did a report on the topic, in the process contacting the local humane society for information,” she recalls. “They sent me Polaroid photos of abused animals, which really upset me. I also volunteered at a local animal organization that provided low-cost spay and neuter services and became vice president of that organization while in 9th grade.”
It was on a family vacation when she met and pet a dairy cow that Petrovna decided she preferred to befriend animals, rather than eat them. From that point on, she thought about how she could maintain a balanced and nutritious diet with all plant-based foods. Through her research, which included earning a degree in biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she found that vegan food could also be highly nutritious and delicious.
In college she rented a room from a natural foods cook and herbalist who made her own tempeh, which involves an incubation process. “She was a great teacher,” says Petrovna. “The first time I tried her tempeh, sparks went off,” she says. “I thought about how many ways it could be served.” Today many of her dishes at Native Foods feature tempeh, such as her “Scorpion Burger” and “Baja Surf Tacos.” Seitan also figures heavily in her dishes, like the “Super Italian Meatball Sub” and “Oklahoma Bacon Cheeseburger.”
Other big draws on the menu include her “Native Bacon” made from specially marinated tofu, her native cheeses created from blends of nuts, seeds, nutritional yeast and various spices and deserts like her dairy-free Cheesecake with ginger granola crust. Such vegan renditions of old favorites are so popular, they’re enjoyed by vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
Destined for Food Service
From the moment Petrovna was able to work, she chose the food service industry. “As a teen, I helped my father at catering events, and I worked in a pancake house as a busgirl. Food and serving it was always in my head,” she says.
After traveling the globe for some time following graduation from college where she soaked up the culture and cuisine of a wide variety of countries, including Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Austria, Petrovna returned to the U.S. to start a personal chef business in 1990, which involved preparing bags of to-go food for clients. She expanded soon after, opening her own 40-seat vegetarian restaurant—a feat for someone new to the dining business.
Working on a shoestring budget, she decorated the restaurant by herself, including tiling it, negotiated the rent and dealt with the health department. “I learned a lot during the process,” says Petrovna, who ran that first restaurant for three years. “It’s something I probably wouldn’t have done if I’d known how much work it would take, but the good news is once you’ve done something like that it’s never as hard again.”
In 1994, Petrovna opened her first Native Foods Café in Palm Springs and was surprised at how well the concept was received. “Back then people were much more leery of vegan meals because of their reputation as rabbit meals. I thought it would be slow at first, but it wasn’t,” she recalls. “It’s always fun to watch people come in with doubtful expressions and then eat and discover that they love the food. The concept has spread by word of mouth by those who have tried the food—I haven’t had to say anything.”
More California restaurants came after Palm Springs with Palm Desert in 1995, Westwood in 2000, Costa Mesa in 2004 and Tustin and Aliso Viejo in 2008 and 2009. More recently in 2010, she opened in Culver City and in 2011 stepped things up with two restaurants in Chicago, a restaurant in Portland and another in San Diego. After the first five restaurants, she decided to take on a group of investors in order to start down the path of becoming a national chain, including Daniel Dolan and Andrea McGinty, founders and former owners of It’s Just Lunch International.
Many Mouths to Reach
“I’ve had so many customers tell me, I wish I could eat this way all of the time,” says Petrovna of her vegan dishes. “McDonalds is my mentor in terms of service and the way they run their business, although instead of the slogan “billions served,” I want it to say “billions saved.” People can walk away from having a great meal and know they helped the environment and animals. I want to give them that choice.”
There are those in the industry who believe that if anyone can make vegan cuisine a household name, it’s Petrovna.
“Tanya is great at bringing fresh, healthy food to people and presenting it in a way that is familiar to them and delicious,” says Tal Ronnen, author of The Conscious Cook. The celebrated vegan chef prepared Oprah Winfrey’s 21-day vegan cleanse and catered Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s vegan wedding, as well as conducts master vegetarian workshops for students and staff at Le Cordon Bleu College campuses. “As a restaurateur, Tanya is a natural leader in vegan quick-serve restaurants,” says Ronnen. “She’s paved the way for many other restaurants and is now taking her food nationwide.”
Ron Biskin, who formerly worked for Wolfgang Puck, now serves as President and Chief Operative Officer of Native Foods, and comments on Petrovna’s skill in the kitchen and as a restaurateur. “Tanya is obviously an expert in plant-based recipes and has a great diversity of knowledge about different flavor profiles. Over the next 5 to 10 years, she would like to see a Native Foods Café in every major city throughout the country so that everyone can enjoy her great food and the vibe of the Native Foods Tribe.”
No doubt anyone who has tasted her food will agree that every city is the best place for Native Foods Café to be.