ONA Becomes the First Vegan Restaurant in France to Win a Michelin Star

A small vegan restaurant on the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux has just become the first fully plant-based restaurant in France to be awarded a Michelin star.

ONA, short for "Origine Non Animale" (of non-animal origin), is run by chef and owner Claire Vallée in the seaside town of Arès. It was named among the new one-star restaurants in the Michelin Guide France 2021, which was revealed in an online ceremony today (Monday, January 18). ONA also picked up a Michelin green star, the award the guide introduced last year for restaurants leading the way on sustainability.

In the home of butter, cream and foie gras, this is a huge moment.

Vallée opened ONA in 2016. French banks weren't keen on lending to an all-vegan fine dining restaurant, so she raised the money through crowdfunding and a loan from La Nef, an ethical green bank. Five years later her seven-dish tasting menu has won over the most famous food inspectors in the world.

She told AFP that getting the call from Michelin "felt like I got hit by a train". Describing her kitchen on the Michelin website, she explains:

We work with seasonal, organic and local produce. Our green terrace, open in the summer, has 140 varieties of edible plants used in our kitchen.

Speaking to The Staff Canteen, Vallée said that "vegetable-based cooking is difficult and innovative", and her advice to other chefs is refreshingly simple: "The most important thing is to enjoy doing this."

Restaurants everywhere are realizing that plants deserve the starring role, and diners' hearts will thank them for it. Research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that plant proteins are significantly more heart-healthy than animal proteins, and an Oxford University study in PNAS estimated that a global switch to vegan diets would save more than 8 million lives by 2050 and cut food emissions by two thirds.

This is the latest sign of the plant-based revolution Google predicted, and it's reaching the very top of the food world. Last year the Golden Globes served a 100% plant-based menu, Joaquin Phoenix used his Oscars speech to speak up for dairy cows and Singapore approved lab-grown chicken for sale. And in 2019 the 37 scientists behind the EAT-Lancet diet told the world to halve its red meat.

Félicitations Claire. The future is looking brighter.