Oddly enough Rich Landau, owner of Philly’s soon-to-close Horizons and still the only chef to ever serve an all-vegan meal at the James Beard House, found the inspiration for his next venture, Vedge, while visiting L.A.’s mostly meat-forward Animal. “They’ve built this reputation for their cutting edge menu and using all these crazy parts of animals,” Landau told Grub Street. “We really want to be that vegetable counterpart, which is ironic, because they’re in L.A. and we’re here in Philly, and it really should be the other way around.”
For the big follow up to his well-received meatless wonder, Horizons, which will close Saturday, Landau is promising a shift from mock meats to a focus on pushing the limits of vegetables, with things like antipasto, pickles and vegetable charcuterie coming from the new place’s vegetable bar, and roasted, grilled and smoked veggie dishes coming from an adjacent hot kitchen.
There’s no word yet if Landau will counter the Animal menu’s two vegetarian dishes with two meaty ones though.
