Go Meatless Tonight, and Next Monday for Eat Drink Local Week

Comment | June 18, 2012 | By Brian Halweil

Jason Weiner of Almond restaurant is among the chefs who has found Meatless Mondays a boon to business and a tasty challenge.

Tonight, at Almond in Bridgehampton, Dark Horse in Riverhead, the Garden City Hotel and throughout the region, restaurants will be serving meatless meals, part of a national movement to improve our collective health. The idea of Meatless Monday is a thrifty-healthy throwback that first spread around the nation during the world wars that’s now making a resurgence—not unlike the Victory Gardens sprouting on rooftops and suburban lawns everywhere.

In fact, the New York-based Meatless Monday campaign has gone viral, as home cooks, restaurant chefs and celebrity eaters (Linda and Paul McCartney) embrace this simple, but radical, idea to improve their health and mix up culinary routines. “It’s expanding our clientele, challenging our cooks, and supporting our local growers,” says Almond chef Jason Weiner. “Put simply—Meatless Mondays is win, win, win. In retrospect, I have no idea why the heck it took me so long to get on board.”

Meatless Monday is also a sponsor of Eat Drink Local Week–our week-long tribute to our foodshed that begins Saturday, June 23rd–and many of our partner restaurants will be serving a meatless prix-fixe on Monday, June 25. (Find a place to eat here.) And for those cooking from home, Meatless Monday has put together helpful, veggie-forward recipe lists—like for radishes!–at meatlessmonday.com.

Of course, not all meat is created equal. We clearly need to eat less of the factory farmed kind and more of the kind raised humanely on small, diversified farms. But eating less meat all around is a good start. Below is a nifty cheat-sheat of a few Meatless Monday partners in the tri-state region.

Almond, Bridgehampton, NY

Arthur on Smith, NYC

Babbo Ristorante, NYC

Dark Horse Restaurant, Riverhead, NY

Dovetail, NYC

Eleanor Rigby’s, Mineola, NY

4Food, NYC