When vegan rock stars come to Melbourne, they count on Shannon Martinez to plate up their plant-based meals. Whether it’s Billie Eilish, Cyndi Lauper or high-profile It-couple Blink 182 drummer Travis Baker and Kourtney Kardashian, the Collingwood-based chef and cookbook author has turned the backstage rider into an elevated meat-free experience. She’s made her name bringing Spanish flavours to a vegan audience via her restaurants ( Smith & Daughters in Collingwood and Lona Misa at Ovolo South Yarra).
But for her latest cookbook, Vegan Italian Food , Martinez is leaning into Italy’s peasant roots for plant-based ideas. “At Smith & Daughters, we did Italian for years and it was very popular. It’s a universally loved cuisine,” Martinez says.
“It made sense I’d revisit this in a cookbook. I haven’t met a person who doesn’t love Italian food, and probably couldn’t trust anybody who says they don’t like Italian food.” Unlike Spanish food, Italian lends itself naturally to vegan cooking.
“Italian peasant-style cooking was vegan out of necessity,” Martinez says. Martinez has just returned from a foodie holiday in Korea with her friend Jung Eun Chae , chef and founder of Korean restaurant Chae . They went into the forest to meet celebrated Seon Buddhist nun and chef Jeong Kwan at her temple.
Kwan, the subject of an episode of the Netflix series Chef’s Table , received the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants Icon Award in 2022 . There are plans to bring Kwan t.