Dirt Candy

The story

Dirt Candy: Michelin-Starred Vegetable Restaurant in New York City

A Restaurant Devoted to Vegetables

Dirt Candy, on Allen Street in New York City’s Lower East Side, is one of only two vegetarian restaurants in the city to hold a Michelin star. But calling it “vegetarian” undersells the ambition. This is a vegetable restaurant – the city’s only one, according to its own words – and its sole mission is to make vegetables taste better than anything you’ve ever had before. The kitchen, led by chef and owner Amanda Cohen, operates like a laboratory, pushing vegetables into territory no one else has explored.

Chef Amanda Cohen

James Beard-nominated chef Amanda Cohen is the force behind Dirt Candy. She was the first vegetarian chef to compete on Iron Chef America and now serves as an Iron Chef on Iron Chef Canada. Her graphic novel cookbook, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook, is in its seventh printing – the first of its kind in North America. The New York Times included Dirt Candy in Paul Freedman’s Ten Restaurants That Changed America as one of “Ten Restaurants Changing America Now.” Cohen’s original 18-seat location earned two stars from the New York Times and five consecutive years of Michelin recognition before moving to the current space in 2015.

The Experience

Dirt Candy serves a single tasting menu that changes with the seasons. The restaurant’s philosophy is simple: “We don’t care about your politics… We simply want to make vegetables as delicious as possible.” Expect dishes that are both “deceptively simple and staggeringly complex,” featuring tableside grilling, strange broths, and bold flavors. The goal is to make people crave vegetables the way they crave fried chicken or pizza. The menu is a journey into the unknown – “you may love some of it, you may hate some of it, but it’ll be unlike anything you’ve ever tried before.”

Drinks with a Point of View

The cocktail list is built entirely around vegetables – think a Popcorn Old Fashioned (popcorn-infused bourbon) or a Kyuri (mezcal, cucumber, yuzu). The wine list, curated by sommelier Lauren Friel, focuses exclusively on estates where women are in charge – winemakers, vineyard managers, or owners. Non-alcoholic vegetable sodas (carrot lemon ginger, celery lime) are also available.

A Different Way of Doing Business

Dirt Candy was the first restaurant in New York City to eliminate tipping and share profits with employees. The starting hourly wage is $29, and staff receive paid time off, sick leave beyond legal requirements, health insurance, and continuing education. As the restaurant puts it, “We don’t need to trick our guests with a hidden 20% surcharge… All of us spent 2020 referring to food service workers as ‘heroes.’ Now it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.”

Recognition

Beyond its Michelin star, Dirt Candy has been named “The Absolute Best Restaurant on the Lower East Side” by New York Magazine and one of America’s 100 Best Restaurants for Wine by Wine Enthusiast. The New Yorker noted that many of Cohen’s dishes “are so earnest in their embrace of a single ingredient that you find yourself stopping to really think about that vegetable, as if for the first time.” It’s a place where vegetables are taken seriously – and deliciously.