Tuesday, January 24, 2023

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A top-ranked Netflix sequence and an increasing Rhode Island “plant-based” vegan empire have one thing in widespread. 

Chef Matthew Kenney.

Whereas Kenney is featured within the Netflix documentary sequence “Dangerous Vegan,” he was making headlines 4 years in the past for bringing his plant-based restaurant idea to Rhode Island. 

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As GoLocal was first to report in 2019, Kenney had set his sights on Windfall to open a vegan meals corridor — Plant Metropolis. 

“Having grown up in New England, I like coming again to the realm, so it’s particularly thrilling to broaden our model into Windfall,”  Kenney, who grew up in Maine, informed GoLocal. 

Kenney, on his company web site, now boasts eight Plant Metropolis places in Rhode Island. 5 are literally situated inside the Plant Metropolis meals corridor on South Water avenue; the “345” speakeasy is throughout the parking zone. There are two separate “Plant Metropolis X” places in Middletown and Warwick.

He touts dozens of holdings from Costa Rica to Tel Aviv. The checklist on his web site for Rhode Island doesn’t embody a newly introduced location at Bryant College.

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Whereas Kenney has been busy increasing his empire, his previous enterprise troubles had been introduced up within the characteristic by streaming big Netflix. 

Featured in Netflix

“Dangerous Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives” is how Netflix describes the sequence, which paperwork how New York Metropolis vegan chef Sarma Melngailis’ launched the restaurant “Pure Meals and Wine” with Kenney in 2004. 

The sequence then delves into how she met and paired with the sequence’ focus, Shane Fox — however first, there was Kenney. 

“I had been a fan of Matthew’s earlier than I’d ever met him,” Mengailis mentioned within the documentary. “I came upon he was writing a ebook, so I went and met him, to interview [him] about engaged on that cookbook.” 

 In keeping with the Netflix documentary, the two then grew to become a pair, after which opened the vegan restaurant in New York with the backing of investor Jeffrey Chodorow. 

“I believe it was forward of its time,” mentioned Nikki King Bennett, the previous Government Chef of “Pure Meals” on the present. “It was a high-end, superb eating, vegan expertise.”

In keeping with the documentary, the cracks between the couple quickly started to indicate.

“With each enterprise…there’s normally a narrative behind it. I believe from the surface, folks see, oh, you could have a restaurant, it’s busy, there’s tons of individuals in there, you have to be profitable, they have to be making a number of cash…they assume the whole lot’s nice,” Melngailis informed the digicam. “However they don’t actually see the behind-the-scenes…there’s a backstory, issues have been difficult over time.”

“I used to be all the time the actually cautious one with cash, and he was a lot much less cautious,” she continued, referencing Kenney. 

The sequence then delves into their cut up. 

“Matthew Kenney was not a well-respected businessman,” mentioned Vainness Honest Journalist Allen Salkin on the Netflix present. “There was loads of phrase round New York that Matthew was a man who didn’t pay his payments…who stiffed loads of buyers, and was bother.”

“I started feeling resentful increasingly…and we weren’t getting alongside,” mentioned Melngailis of her relationship with Kenney. 

“Our cut up grew to become a really public factor, and through the time, folks would come into the restaurant — coming in to see some form of actuality TV kind of combat,” Melngailis continued. “We had been each there. I wasn’t leaving, he wasn’t leaving.”

Chodorow was reportedly compelled to intervene. 

“I bought a name from Matthew…he mentioned to me, I can’t proceed to work with Sarma, so I want you to expel her from the restaurant,” Chodorow mentioned on digicam. “Then I bought a name from Sarma.”

“Then I considered it — I mentioned, my choices are, I’ve Matthew Kenney, who’s a really gifted chef…who had a nasty monetary historical past,” added Chadorow. “And however, I had Sarma…she was a really achieved particular person in her personal proper.”

“So I picked Sarma. And I informed Matthew to go,” he added. “Which frankly, I believe, shocked him.”

Chef Strikes On

In keeping with a number of publications, Kenney has confronted a variety of lawsuits. 

“Celeb vegan chef Matthew Kenney is dealing with a lawsuit from his Plant Meals + Wine Miami landlord, The Sacred Area, which alleges unpaid lease in the course of his lease, breaking his non-compete and failing to pay gross sales taxes, The Miami Herald is reporting,” reported Eater in 2017.

The Miami Herald in 2018 reported that “Plant Miami” and Kenney had settled the go well with. 

“This Miami vegan restaurant thrives after dumping its movie star chef,” was the headline within the Herald. 

The Herald wrote:

“[Owner Karla] Dascal settled a lawsuit in late November in opposition to California vegan and raw-food chef Matthew Kenney, the award-winning chef who introduced his plant-based restaurant, Plant Meals and Wine, to South Florida. The restaurant displayed a refined stage of vegan and vegetarian delicacies the likes of which Miami hadn’t identified. Nonetheless, he additionally introduced alongside a string of unhealthy enterprise dealings. 

Dascal sued him in March, claiming he owed greater than $1.4 million in lease and broke his contract by lending his identify to a second plant-based restaurant in South Florida, Plnthouse on Miami Seaside. It was the newest in a string of fits in opposition to Kenney, as reported in a July Miami Herald investigation. Kenney countersued for unspecified damages, saying Dascal didn’t have the proper to take over the restaurant and use his recipes. They settled and Dascal renamed the restaurant Plant Miami. 

By way of all of it, the restaurant by no means closed. The unique day-to-day cooks, a husband-and-wife workforce who had been with the restaurant because it opened, stayed on and innovated new plant-based menus for devoted followers.”

Neither Kenney nor Plant Metropolis proprietor Kim Anderson responded to request for touch upon Kenney’s present involvement within the eating places in Rhode Island. 

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