From ‘Bad Vegan’ to mass restaurant closures — inside Matthew Kenney’s crumbling raw food empire
LOS ANGELES — The unmistakable stench of rotting food filled the space formerly occupied by chef Matthew Kenney’s trendy Venice restaurant, Plant Food + Wine.
It was coming from the walk-in refrigerator, where spoiled sprouts, garlic and other vegetables had been left to fester after Kenney — an acclaimed vegan chef and cookbook author — closed the restaurant in May.
Plant Food + Wine had been the flagship of Kenney’s culinary empire, which, by one count, included more than 50 eateries in a dozen-plus countries as of spring 2022. A fixture on social media, the Abbot Kinney Boulevard restaurant was a favorite of lifestyle influencers who touted dishes like Kenney’s signature raw lasagna with heirloom tomatoes and zucchini.
Now, that was all gone. Kenney’s restaurant had been evicted. But even as the produce moldered at the shuttered vegan eatery, he was opening a new version of Plant Food + Wine at the glitzy Four Seasons Hotel near Beverly Hills.
Handsome, media savvy and prolific, Kenney, 59, has a knack for opening restaurants that make a splash — and then quietly close not too long after with a pile of unpaid bills. Since September 2022, six of Kenney’s L.A.-area spots have shuttered, among them Double Zero in Venice and Hungry Angelina in Long Beach, along with at least six others across the U.S.
“A close-down was inevitable,” said Jack Darling, a former server at Kenney’s Sestina in Culver City, which folded in July. “As soon as I started, there was a lot of talk: ‘Yeah, Matthew Kenney — every time one business goes bad, he opens a new one.’”
A pioneering raw food chef who first gained culinary fame in New York in the 1990s, Kenney, in more recent years, has shrewdly cultivated the aura of a green-living guru, making him a celebrity among the wheatgrass sipping set. He has seemingly charmed partners — even a Saudi royal dubbed the “Vegan Prince” — despite leaving behind disgruntled investors, landlords and employees in cities across the country, from New York to Miami and L.A.
The rank mess at Plant Food + Wine only hinted at the level of disarray at the chef’s flagship company, Matthew Kenney Cuisine, and at his many restaurants.
In lawsuits and interviews with The Times, landlords, partners and ex-employees — among them managers and servers — accused Kenney and his companies of not paying millions of dollars
