The Vegan Adventure of Daphne Cheng

Over the past few years Daphne Cheng has been highly active in the culinary world. Very passionate about veganism she maintains that plant based foods could, and should be the centerpiece of meals.

The path to becoming a successful vegan chef was challenging as Cheng struggled with an eating disorder in her youth. While not necessarily intending to become a vegan Cheng had a wake up call in her early teens after viewing a photograph of herself where she could see how dangerously thin she had become. At that time she decided she had to do something serious to fix her health. Through educating herself about better eating habits she discovered veganism. Veganism proved to be restorative to her health, as well as allowed Cheng to build a new positive relationship with food. The process of embracing plant based nutrition as not just a diet but a lifestyle was a slow but progressive one. In her teen years she was able to become more aware of her eating habits, steadily eliminating meat and dairy products. Reading the now well known China Study helped her commit and maintain herself as a vegan, as the book is known for highlighting the connection between nutritional choices and disease.

Cheng would  later attend university to study nutrition but not feeling motivated to pursue that field she left her program to study culinary arts in New York City. After completing her coursework she opened a supper club in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, Suite ThreeOhSix. After operating the supper club for over a year and a half, Cheng was able to develop her reputation and spread awareness of her presence and brand in New York. This would benefit her later on as she would have to shut down her supper club when the building she operated out of was set to be demolished.

Moving on she was able to connect with famed New York City restaurateur Ravi Derossi. Owning many establishments in the city that served meat Derossi was going through his own personal transition to veganism. He realized that he could not continue to operate restaurants that served meat while being a vegan himself. To this end he recruited Cheng to help him transition two of his restaurants to fully vegan, Mother of Pearl and Ladybird. Cheng became his executive chef and created brand new plant based menus. The new menu items offered an eclectic and uncommon variety of foods that made use of some creative ingredient choices. The dishes proved to be popular with vegans and meat eaters alike.

More recently she gained international fame on the popular Chinese cooking show Feng Wei. Invited because she is a vegan chef Cheng was excited to demonstrate her skill and expertise with vegan culinary arts. The show’s producers seemed so enthusiastic about her involvement that she was given the nickname Vegetarian Queen. However once appearing in the first round of the show Cheng was forced into a compromising situation where the cooking challenge forced her to exchange specialties with another competing chef, and given the assignment of cooking her dish with only meat. Not willing to abandon her ethics to appear on the program she refused the challenge. Her decision ultimately disqualified her from the competition. See her discuss the entire incident in this interview with Plant Based News.

Cheng recently relocated to Shanghai, China. Cheng sees this as a great opportunity to take her promotion of veganism to new heights in the developing cultural landscape of contemporary China. She notes Shanghai provides a very supportive culture because the entrepreneurial and expat community is so small that people have to support each other. Cheng once described her development as an evolution and it certainly has been. Starting from educating herself to find a more healthy way to eat to creating an international vegan brand. Cheng’s enthusiasm for plant based nutrition is contributing to a greater worldwide acceptance of a vegan lifestyle.

Visit Daphne Cheng’s Instagram to say Hi, and tell her Gorilla Picnic sent you.