A wiz of vegan cuisine
Today a renowned vegan chef and owner of several Montréal restaurants, Christian Manuel Ventura Alatorre left Mexico at the age of 21 to visit Montréal and take a break from med school.
Enchanted by the city, he decides to follow his intuition and move to Montréal for good. Without any professional culinary experience, he lands a job in a Japanese restaurant.
This is the beginning of a great love story with Japanese cooking and know-how and an even greater adventure for this young entrepreneur.
A few years later, in 2014, he opens Sushi Momo, a small vegan sushi restaurant on Duluth Street. A victim of his own success, Sushi Momo must move to bigger premises twice before settling in a gorgeous space facing Carré Saint-Louis. Driven by his passion for vegan cuisine and a desire to share it with as many people as possible, he opens Casa Kaizen and Nopalito in 2020. His fourth restaurant, Bvrger will open soon.
“I became vegan in 2012 while I was doing a lot of yoga and retreats in Asia. For me it was a total flavour revelation. After eating in a vegan sushi restaurant in New York, I knew I could do better. A few months later, I opened Sushi Momo, my first restaurant, to share my love of plant-based foods.”