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Move over chefs of DC, Los Angeles, and NYC — Cape Cod’s culinarians are getting creative with their fruits and veggies. During the month of October, the cities that make up the cozy Massachusetts community have launched a Plant-Based Chef Challenge.

The catalyst for the challenge was Joanne Irwin, a local Food for Life Instructor with the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). One of her colleagues had been organizing a similar challenge in California, and she thought, why not Cape Cod?

Through the local Green Nosh Group she started four years earlier, Irwin and a small committee of five set out to recruit restaurants.

“We met to brainstorm restaurants we thought would be good additions. Two of us visited the restaurants and we wound up with fifteen,” she tells Latest Vegan News.

Participating restaurants include Alberto’s, Bistro Soleil, Green Lotus Café, Kabob ‘n Curry, Pizza Barbone, Bass River Burrito & Fish Co., Ocean House, Underground Bakery, Gerardi’s, Royal II, Karoo Restaurant, Harbor Point, Pickle Jar, and Van Rensselaer’s.

The Ocean House (led by Executive Chef, Anthony Silvestri) even created an entirely new and separate menu for the challenge, featuring five different appetizers and two entrees. These include edamame dumplings, baby kale Caesar salad with creamy tofu dressing, charred cauliflower steak and more.

“What I was delighted to hear from some of the chefs was that more of their customers have been requesting vegetarian/vegan options, and they were delighted to part of this,” Irwin says. “A couple restaurants were already serving plant based options. We have only one on the Cape which is totally vegan/vegetarian and that’s The Green Lotus Cafe in Hyannis.”

If all goes well this year, Irwin hopes it can become an annual challenge with even more restaurants participating. This year, she fully intends to eat at all 15. So far, so delicious, she says.

Visit PlantBasedChefChallengeCapeCod.com to follow the competition and see what the chefs are whipping up.

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