5 delicious new Bay Area plant-based foods that are actually good for you

Not sure about Beyond or Impossible? These small, local start-ups are making craveable plant-based and vegan products with clean, sustainable ingredients

At a recent $250-a-plate dinner called A Taste of the Future, Los Angeles celebrity vegan chef Nicole Derseweh delighted an elite group of plant-eaters in San Francisco with the next wave of planet-conscious delicacies.

They started with dollops of seaweed caviar on smoked carrot lox; sips of whiskey produced from flavor and aroma molecules; and nibbles of spicy faux chicken drumettes made from chickpeas. Diners dusted off the meal with milkless ash-rimmed brie; foie gras created from mycelium, part of the root structure of mushrooms; and honey made without bees.

What sets these foods apart, besides their futuristic flair, is that most are actually good for you and made in a way that doesn’t harm the planet, something that is yet to be determined when it comes to mainstream plant-based foods, especially alternative proteins.

That’s what brought this group together. The dinner, held at The Brixton, a New American lounge in South Beach, was part of Future Food-Tech, the annual conference for the global food-tech industry. This year, investors and startups were razor-focused on sustainability and clean, traceable ingredients in an industry that is expected to reach $74 billion by 2025.

So, what tasted good, with ingredients we could actually pronounce? We sampled our way through both days of the conference and cast our net further to find new Northern California plant-based foods that check all the boxes.

Here are five that impressed us:

Black Sheep Foods

San Francisco-based Black Sheep Foods specializes in plant-based heritage breed meats and wild game. Its first product, a ground “lamb” that hit the market last year, makes a juicy, flavorful kebab. Since 2019, co-founder Sunny Kumar and his food scientists have developed flavor compounds that hit your nose first — like they did when we were hunter-gatherers — re-creating the essence of lamb, only better.

Black Sheep’s version is less gamy, just-greasy-enough, and, when mixed with aromatics and grilled, mimics the texture and sensory experience of a fine burger. The faux lamb has roughly the same fat and protein as the real thing, with none of the environmental degradation of lamb, which ranks worst among all domesticated meat sources. Next up? Duck.

Details: On the menu at Souvla, Ettan, Oren’s Hummus Shop and other Bay Area restaurants; https://blacksheepfoods.com

The Uncreamery

“We can’t live like this.” It’s what cheese lovers Lisa Myaf and her partner, Mark Charette, a trained chef of 20 years, said when they became vegan and realized they’d have to live off Daiya for the rest of their lives. That’s when The Uncreamery, San Francisco’s first vegan creamery, was born in 2016.

Through incubator kitchen La Cocina, the duo makes luxurious, close-your-eyes-good artisanal cheeses from nuts, refined coconut oil and umami sources, like miso and mushroom extract. They use almonds for block cheeses, like their Ghost Pepper Jack, and cashews for softer wheels, including an ashed rindless brie that has the dreamy look and taste of a subtle blue-veined cheese.

The Uncreamery makes five cheeses, including dill havarti, truffle brie and a smoked gouda that melts into a perfect grilled cheese. Some day, Myaf and Charette hope to open a vegan deli and cheese shop like Paso Robles’ The Vreamery, which carries their cheese.

Details: At Diablo Foods in Lafayette, Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco and online at www.theuncreamery.com.

Venganza Foods

Oakland’s Raul Medina wants to be the Impossible Meat for Latin American cuisine. The chef-founder of Venganza Foods is getting close: After serving his vegan tacos at Coachella and being named the best taco in Los Angeles during the city’s “Taco Madness” competition in 2018, Medina is now selling his absurdly tender and flavorful faux asada, chicharron and other Mexican meats at his plant-based carnicería, which doubles as the home of Taqueria La Venganza.

The carnitas are made from shredded tofu skin marinated in a smoky citrus brine, while the skirt steak-mimicking asada is soy-based, and simmered in shiitake mushroom broth with beer and lime. Both are served in delightfully blistered, hand-pressed tortillas. A WeFunder to scale up and get the meats into supermarkets has raised $128,000 to date.

Details: Taqueria La Venganza, 597 15th St., Oakland, and online, shipping nationwide, by the pound at www.venganzafoods.com

Gooder Foods

Jen Zeszut and her Santa Cruz-based Gooder Foods team are on a mission to make good-for-you comfort food that doesn’t taste like cardboard. Their first product, a healthful, grown-up mac and cheese called Goodles, is pretty darn good. The four flavors have silly names — the classic aged white cheddar is called Shella Good — and serious nutrition. Each serving has 15 grams of protein and six grams of fiber.

The elbow-style mac is made from chickpeas and wheat that they grow and mill themselves and combine with ground-up super foods, like broccoli and spinach. As for the cheese — which is real — it took 1,000 versions to get it just right: Melty, gooey and delicious. Goodles is not 100 percent plant-based but still made our list for its nutrient density and clean ingredients. A vegan mac is in the works.

Details: $2.99 at Target and online at www.goodles.com.

Karana

We first tasted Karana’s jackfruit-based meat products at an intimate Future Food-Tech happy hour. First thought: This is nothing like the watery stuff in the can. Made from young, organic Sri Lankan jackfruit and boosted with pea protein and canola oil, Karana’s minced product is meant to substitute ground pork in everything from dumplings to meatballs. It seasons beautifully, too.

At their San Mateo headquarters inside KitchenTown, the team makes carnitas-style shreds from four ingredients — jackfruit, canola oil, salt and “natural flavors” — which clock in at only 91 calories per serving. Retail products, including dumplings and char siu bao, are coming soon. Meanwhile, A-list restaurants are already on board.

Details: On the menu at Wildseed, Empress by Boon and Base Camp, all in San Francisco; https://eatkarana.com