a pillar in my life

Lida is 30 years old, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Tell me about your restaurant, ESSEN

It’s in Over The Rhine (OTR), a neighborhood just outside of downtown Cincinnati. My parents are vegan - they’re environmentalists who understand the impact food has on our climate. And when my mom’s dad was diagnosed with cancer she became more aware of the effects of diet, and the benefits of plant-based eating. While I was in business school in 2016, our thesis prompt was to create a business around something you love.

Being born in LA and growing up in Seattle, both places held this lifestyle, this mentality of clean eating, so it was a change going to Cincinnati, Ohio. I mean it’s called Porkopolis! There’s a lot of meat and dairy in people’s diets. At that time, OTR was filled with really great restaurants, but there was this gap. Not in an obvious way, because there was delicious food on every corner- but there weren’t any places offering affordable, healthy, sustainable food. Everything was fried, dishes were centered around meat. If you were vegan or looking for a healthy lunch you were stuck with a huge bland salad, no dressing!

With ESSEN, everything came together in a special way. My parents are architects, and they had always wanted to open a cafe. My mom works with an organization to save historic buildings from being demolished by restoring them, called OTR adopt. They had a building in shambles, without a floor or roof, the non-profit saved it, and my mom restored it.

I built a business plan for something that now would be considered a ghost kitchen, which didn’t exist at the time. A direct-to-consumer food model, catering to the local community by providing affordable healthy food. In order to make healthy food accessible and affordable, we had to drop all other costs - no tables, no servers, just produce the food. To bring it to life I created a crowd-funding campaign, we found an incredible chef from Cuba with a background in Food Science willing to jump into this ambiguous space and make something happen. We tried a bunch of different concepts to try and make it successful. We tried to do catering for corporate America and get them to buy into healthy food but that didn't work -laughs- so we went with individual portions, signed deals with all of the delivery platforms and we’re still alive and kickin’ to this day!

What has it been like to figure out how to nourish yourself?

Food is absolutely a pillar in my life. I found that out through eating really healthy food growing up, then eating really unhealthy food when I realized I could eat whatever I wanted and feeling like shit. I was trying to make my own rules outside of what my family taught me. Growing up, I was raised eating natural and organic food, I didn’t know what Disney was really, I lived in a non-gendered household. Looking back and understanding my parent’s values and now mine, I’m incredibly appreciative.

I remember what it was like to eat food at home and then how different it was at a friend’s house. At the time, I was a track junior olympian, did competitive gymnastics, soccer, basketball, volleyball, double-dutch, as much as I could cram into my schedule. I was gangly and had a 12 pack. I was fucking ripped! I remember going to Wild Waves on a school trip in middle school. Kids made fun of me for being a ripped girl, for having a 12 pack, and being muscular in my tankini. Afterward, I went home to a friend’s house looking for as much junk food as possible to try and give myself a more “normal” body. It didn’t work -laughs- but, that memory has always stuck with me. 

When I’m eating like shit, my body and mind feel like shit. It feels like I’m going against my values. It tastes great for a second but it feels like I’m failing. I know when other pillars of my life like exercise, positive relationships, and art are there, I eat really well. If one of those things is off, I eat horribly.

Sometimes there can be social pressure to do unhealthy things and it’s hard to step away from the pack

It takes longer than you’d like to have that aha moment and come back to yourself. 

With ESSEN, my concern was kind of the opposite - creating a place for non-vegans and meat-eaters, people who hold that stigma against eating plant-based “rabbit food”. I wanted them to try our food and feel comfortable. I wanted it to be as nostalgic as possible, a place where you could get a hamburger where maybe the patty doesn't have meat and the cheese doesn’t have milk. To make it an easy transition and alternative, our menu is all about the things you want to eat, and the things you crave. We provide a space for people to feel comfortable ordering plant-based food, by making it reminiscent and similar to what they’re used to.

What is that comfort dish for you?

So many. There are some really random dishes, like flan -laughs- My dad would go through phases trying to perfect certain dishes. It was embarrassing as a kiddo! In middle school and high school, he would pick one thing and make it for weeks, even months, and that’s what we would have for lunch and dinner. After that, I couldn’t eat it for so long, but now flan makes me smile a bit thinking back to those memories. 

Then we went to Italy and my Dad and brother took a class to learn how to make homemade pasta. After that, I would come home and there would be clothes drying racks everywhere, even in the bathtub, with freshly cut homemade pasta drying all over the house -laughs-

Japanese and Vietnamese food are comforting for me, too because we lived in both Japan and Vietnam when I was younger. All of my comfort food is grounded in those cuisines. My baby pictures are all in Japan, and in Vietnam, we had our favorite street vendors. My dad picked up Vietnamese and would talk to the waiters. I don’t even know what my favorite foods are called but I just remember eating all of these amazing foods. 

I love that food can literally take you to a different country or a different time in your life. 

What do you think about this idea that eating and cooking are art forms? Do you have a take on that?

I definitely do. When we launched ESSEN, our tagline was, “the art of eating well.” Our chef is a food scientist, and an artist - he balances all of these textures and flavors. I got my undergrad in Art, I love and practice art in other mediums but I never looked at food as an art form until recently. I thought food was about a list of ingredients or a recipe, or just putting together a bunch of things and seeing what came of it. 

Now I look at food differently - creating or evoking emotion from whoever is tasting it. I view plant-based eating as an art form because it's so new, it hasn’t been conquered yet. It’s a new category and medium to explore but it's still so difficult to create your final, your masterpiece. There are some cute little sketches, tastes, or tapas, but to create something that hits all of these marks: is nice to look at, reminds you of something, tastes delicious, fills you up, that’s a whole experience that you are creating for your audience or your eater. 

What role has cooking had in your life? Do you go through seasons of cooking and not cooking?

Definitely. It all depends on my environment. If I’m settled, I'm cooking. If I'm not and I'm unorganized then I’m eating out all the time. I love cooking for myself. It makes me feel like I'm on track, accomplished, getting things done, and taking care of myself. It’s a form of self-care for me.

What famous person would you want to sit down for a meal with?

Someone who I could impress enough with a plant-based meal for them to make an impact on their audience, their base of meat-eaters.

Like, Dolly Parton with the vaccine! 

Exactly. Someone who would carry influence. There’s so much strength in numbers and eating plant-based is still this divisive thing. 

What’s your wish for the women of the world when it comes to eating and cooking?

I meet picky eaters who are nervous to try new things and I think that is so limiting for your health and your life. I love it when people take risks with food. Don’t stick to what you know! If you don’t try something new, you’ll never really know what’s out there. 

I heard your taste buds change, are completely new every 6 years or so, and you have a completely new palate. Give plant-based food a chance! There are so many ingredients, spices, and opportunities for healthy and delicious food. 

Our food system is stuck in this profitable space where we create food that is horrible for you, it causes health issues and then we have to buy medication from big pharma in order to get better. If you can find a way to beat that system by buying fresh sustainable food from local farms, take that risk and find a way to connect with food in a way that is good for you and the environment. 

Whatever your values are, build on them. Not just by saying that you care about things, but by allowing those values to carry over to how you eat. Eating food is my favorite way to stand behind your values. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.