How LA’s most beloved vegan restaurant is celebrating its 10-year anniversary

Helmed by acclaimed chef Tal Ronen, vegan restaurant Crossroads Kitchen has been a mainstay of the plant-based food movement since opening its flagship West Hollywood location in 2013. A beloved fixture of vegetarian fine dining, the restaurant is now celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a group of chefs who are trailblazers themselves.

For a special night on March 30, three renowned chefs at Crossroads, including Ronen and his team, will prepare a five-course meal that showcases the best in plant-based cooking to celebrate the role that Crossroads has played in making space for vegans. Food on fine dining table.

Jacob Layman

“We were thinking of a meaningful way to celebrate the 10-year mark and wanted to do it with the people who support or inspire the restaurant,” Ronen told VegNews. “We’ve never had that happen.”

10th Anniversary Vegetarian Menu

For the big night, Ronen enlisted a “dream team” of chefs to create a special menu with five delectable dishes.

Michael Voltage

By Chef Michael Voltaggio top boss Fame—making the first course that captures the flavors of the sea: potato millefeuille, potato fonduta, kelp caviar, sea beans and black garlic and lemon.

“My food is inspired by Tal’s cuisine, studying his creativity and celebrating the memorable experience I had at the Crossroads,” Voltazio tells VegNews. “It’s about finding the intersection of land and sea while showcasing these elements with taste, technique and creative process.”

Ronen and Voltaggio are good friends and often helped each other when the latter ran his restaurant (called “Ink”) on Melrose Avenue. “Chef Tal’s approach to his menu is to make it accessible to everyone,” says Voltazio. “Crossroads is not just a delicious plant-based restaurant, it’s a delicious restaurant.”

Nancy Silverton

Groundbreaking chef and baker Nancy Silverton—co-owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Osteria Mozza—is responsible for the second course, a simple, yet complex, celery heart salad with spring vegetable crostini. Crossroads is inspired by Mediterranean cuisine and Silverton’s culinary perspective was a natural fit.

“Nancy really brought great Italian food to L.A. so it was important to have her,” says Ronan.

The third course will be helmed by chef Daniel Humm, who last year took the bold step of transitioning Eleven Madison Park—which has three Michelin stars—to a plant-based menu to combat the climate crisis. For the food, Hum made Maitake mushroom with juniper and pine dish to celebrate Crossroads’ 10th anniversary.

Craig McDean

Six years ago Crossroads’ chefs met Ronen after working to introduce more plant-based options at the Bauer au Lac in Zurich, Switzerland, one of Europe’s oldest hotels and where Humm got his start as a chef. The two chefs cooked together at the local St. Moritz Gourmet Festival about a year later.

“We wanted someone like Daniel [for the anniversary dinner] Because he is an inspiration to all of us,” says Ronen.

The final two courses will be created by Ronen and his team at Crossroads, featuring a pasta course of sweet pea and ricotta anolini with black truffle butter and a dessert course of chocolate caramel popcorn bars.

“We took the pasta course because it’s such a big part of Crossroads,” says Ronen. “We make fresh pasta daily in every shape and size; Even pasta that you wouldn’t normally think is made fresh like spaghetti … nobody actually does.”

Served from 5pm to 10pm, the sumptuous meal is a celebration of the beauty of plant-based food—and the innovators who make it—and can be booked through Yelp for $145 per person.

Crossroads legacy

Ronen has a long career in the plant-based world as a writer, restaurateur and chef. In 2008, he served as Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef during her 21-day vegan cleanse.

Travis Barker (left), Tal Ronen (right) / Crossroads Kitchen

Crossroads—which he opened with backing from Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker—is where Ronen’s love of food shines through. Here, Ronen has invented many dishes over the past decade that previously didn’t seem possible as plant-based concepts.

He popularized the Cal Caesar, which he says he never massages but cuts in a way that “chews you in half.” Through Crossroads, Ronen introduced diners to vegan caviar (made from kelp) over vegan oysters (made from artichokes)—a dish that’s still on the menu today.

Crossroads Kitchen

When Crossroads opened, it was the first vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles to offer a full bar program. And while many restaurants — including Ham — have shifted their menus to serve modern palettes, Crossroads has always been ahead of its time.

“We wanted this place to look like an Upper West Side steakhouse. Really cozy, from the chandeliers to the big booths and banquettes,” says Ronen, who hand-picked all the fixtures at Crossroads.

“And it stands the test of time because a classic dining room like this will never go out of style,” he says.

And while the food alone continues to attract a high rate of repeat customers, Ronen’s hospitality to everyone, including his celebrity clientele, keeps them coming back.

In its early days, the Crossroads’ glitzy location attracted celebrities, who were quickly followed by a swarm of paparazzi, Ronen said. Instead of capitalizing on that press, Ronen built a private entry, steel-reinforced garage in the back—a bona fide batcave—to allow celebrity clients to enter Crossroads’ dining room and enjoy their meals in privacy.

“What we’ve done is build trust with our high-profile guests and that’s made them feel comfortable that we’ll never sell them,” Ronen says. “And they’ll have a comfortable place to eat.”

The next decade at the crossroads

Last year, Crossroads began an expansion that put its restaurants in two new areas, including an outpost of the newly opened Resorts World as the first vegetarian fine-dining restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip.

Number of rounds

The second new location is in Calabasas, home to the restaurant’s biggest celebrity fans, the Kardashian/Jenner family. As with its Melrose flagship, Ronen ensures that Calabasas’ celebrity clientele will be able to dine in peace with a 16-seat private dining room that extends to an open-air patio and whose glass walls become opaque at the flip of a switch.

These new Crossroads locations were opened to support the desire of the restaurant’s corporate chef Paul Zlatos — with whom Ronen worked for 11 years at Vine in Las Vegas — to expand the concept a bit. Having Zlatos in an active role at both locations, Ronnen said, ensures Crossroads’ quality is top notch.

But will a crossroads open near you soon? Ronen says he gets that request often, but Crossroads will keep the quality focused on what it has built over the past decade: a thoughtful food menu backed by excellent service.

Instead, Ronen is excited to push the boundaries of plant-based fine dining with new dishes and menu concepts, with a strong focus on quality ingredients, seasonal menus and freshly made pasta—the chef’s undying passion.

Crossroads Kitchen

“We continue to innovate,” Ronen said. “We’re always pushing the envelope. Our artichoke oysters that have been on the menu for 10 years or a new dish—like foie gras made with chestnuts and mushrooms. That’s what drives us.”