gourmet traveller vegetable recipes

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12 Elegant Gourmet Vegetarian Recipes

The Spruce / Elaine Lemm

A vegetarian meal doesn't mean a menu of plain-Jane recipes. It can include luscious gourmet dishes that are also easy to prepare. These recipes are suitable for a dinner party or romantic meal for two, or just when you want a nice meatless meal to enjoy. From appetizers, soup, and salad, to entrees and side dishes, these recipes will impress vegetarians and meat-eaters alike.

Herbed Vegan Mushroom Pate

The Spruce Eats / Anastasiia Tretiak

Serve this herbed vegan mushroom pate as an appetizer at your cocktail party or with drinks before your gourmet dinner. Mushrooms replace the typical chopped liver and provide that earthy flavor familiar to fans of the rich spread. You can use it to top toasted slices of baguette or your favorite vegan crackers.

Pea and Mint Soup

The Spruce / Nyssa Tanner

Like spring in a bowl, this pretty green soup marries the fresh flavors of peas and mint, making for a sweet and refreshing starter. The recipe is simple: Cook sautéed onion and garlic with shelled fresh peas, mint leaves, and vegetable broth, and then blend until smooth and creamy. More peas and broth are added, along with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, adding a nice texture and tang to the soup.

Vegetarian Avocado Caprese Salad

The Spruce Eats / Emily Hawkes

The classic vegetarian avocado Caprese salad gets an update with the addition of avocado. It's the perfect summer salad when you can get garden-ripe tomatoes and fresh basil. Dress it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a bit of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, or drizzle it with a bit of honey for a sweet twist. For a vegan version, substitute vegan mozzarella .

Mushroom Risotto

Risotto always seems to impress—not necessarily for the ingredients, which can be very simple, but for the slow and time-consuming process of stirring and adding stock. This recipe features a mushroom stock, which adds a nice earthy flavor, but you can use vegetable stock if need be. Any type of mushroom will work, but using a more unusual type will make this recipe even more special.

Mushroom Wellington

Even the meat-eaters will be clamoring for a taste of this gorgeous vegetarian version of the elegant beef Wellington . Puff pastry surrounds a hearty mixture of butternut squash, sweet potato, portobello mushrooms, kale, and faro, and then the bundle is baked until golden brown. Serve with a light tarragon cream sauce for drizzling.

Butternut Squash Ravioli With White Wine Sauce

Wow your guests by serving them homemade butternut squash ravioli —they will never know how easy they were to make with store-bought wonton wrappers. A filling of roasted and pureed butternut squash, sautéed shallots, heavy cream, and Parmesan cheese is spooned between two wrappers, sealed, and then boiled gently for just a few minutes. The white wine sauce with toasted hazelnuts is the perfect, elegant finishing touch.

Classic Italian Potato Gnocchi

The Spruce / Diana Chistruga

Just potatoes, flour, and salt are all you need to make homemade gnocchi , as well as some time and a little bit of effort—but these pasta pillows are fun to prepare. Keep them simple with a drizzle of good-quality extra-virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of Parm, a pinch of sea salt, and fresh basil, or dress with a sauce, such as  creamy mushroom sauce , mascarpone and gorgonzola sauce , or homemade pesto .

Vegetarian Mushroom Stroganoff

The Spruce Eats / Leah Maroney  

We are familiar with beef stroganoff as a comfort dish, but when made with interesting mushrooms, it can become an elegant entrée. The ingredient list for this recipe is somewhat long, but the process of sautéing, deglazing, and simmering is simple. Serve on top of egg noodles for a complete dish.

Roasted Vegetable Quiche

The Spruce / Cara Cormack

Roasted vegetables add a wonderful sweet and caramelized flavor to this creamy quiche. Ready-made pie dough means this recipe comes together somewhat easily—especially if you have leftover roasted vegetables in the fridge—but feel free to make the quiche in stages. Two kinds of cheese, Parmesan and Gruyère, impart a tangy and nutty taste; serve warm or room temperature.

Vegan Ratatouille

A beautiful vegan ratatouille will add great color to the table and pack lots of flavor. It's the perfect summer dish when zucchini, eggplant, and bell pepper are in season, whether growing in your garden or bought from the farmers market. Feel free to make this ahead of time as the dish tastes even better the next day.

Tomato Tart With Fillo and Feta Cream

A wonderful way to enjoy colorful, fresh tomatoes, this beautiful tart is bursting with flavor. The creamy feta mixture seasoned with za'atar and oregano adds a slightly salty layer between the buttery fillo dough and juicy tomatoes. Although easy to put together, the tart makes an impressive centerpiece on the summer dinner table.

Hasselback Butternut Squash

The Spruce/Leah Maroney

This recipe proves that simple can be elegant. Calling for just four ingredients—whole butternut squash, butter, brown sugar, and toasted walnuts—this pretty dish will be the star of the dinner table. To achieve the attractive appearance, the squash needs to be peeled and repeatedly sliced (but not all the way through; a set of chopsticks is helpful). The dish is finished off with a sprinkling of chopped nuts and fresh sage.

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Five must-visit Michelin-star restaurants in Italy, according to top chef Peter Gilmore

It takes one to know one, which is why when Peter Gilmore tells you a restaurant is good, you can trust it will be exceptional. The executive chef behind two of Australia’s most iconic restaurants — Quay and Bennelong — knows exactly what it takes to stand out from the crowd and continually delight diners. So following a recent trip to Italy, where he mentored the Oceania regional finalist Robin Wagner in the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy competition, we simply had to know: which Michelin-star restaurants in Italy are on his fine-dining hitlist? But before we reveal his top five Italian Michelin-star restaurants, an important word of advice from the master: pace yourself.

“The reality is you’re always going to have limited time when you’re travelling,” says Gilmore. “But don’t ever try to do two in the same day… If you can have a few days between these really special experiences, it’s best. And then just eat really simple food in between. Eat local and humble.”

While the temptation to cram in as many Michelin-star restaurant bookings as possible can be overwhelming, Gilmore says it can actually dull the experience. “I would rather pick three or four of the very best restaurants than go to 10 of the nearly best restaurants. Choose the ones that really interest you from your research and maybe stick to four in a two-week period. Don’t try to fit too many in.”

“A lot of these restaurants are a bit of a journey. You have to drive or catch trains. They are destination restaurants, and you’ve really got to put a bit of effort into getting to them,” says Gilmore.

But, he promises, that effort will be worthwhile. “You will really feel that reward from your pilgrimage.”

Osteria Francescana

Chef: Massimo Bottura Location: Moderna Michelin Stars: ★★★

“In my opinion, Massimo really started the modern Italian food movement and he is still the master of innovative cuisine. All of his dishes have an emotional story attached to them. Whether it be about the environment, or an experience, or a memory. He’s a very passionate individual and it comes across in the food. It varies from serious to whimsical but there is always an emotional intent in his dishes – and a beautiful balance of flavours.”

Chef: Riccardo Camanini Location: Lake Garda Michelin stars: ★

“Riccardo is such a lovely man, he runs the restaurant with his brother and it is very much a family restaurant – at a super high level. I had the most beautiful lunch there and it’s really the type of restaurant you want to go to during the day so you can appreciate the view. It’s right on the lake – it used to be a boat house. The restaurant inside is quite simple and humble but the setting is exquisite. His food is so delicious and creative. He has a real focus on pasta – his most famous dish is a pasta cooked in a pig’s bladder so the pasta never actually goes into water. You just feel so special being there.”

Piazza Duomo

Chef: Enrico Crippa Location: Alba Michelin stars: ★★★

“Piazza Duomo is in the main square of Alba. It’s just a couple of small rooms painted pink with a kitchen out the back so it’s all about what’s being served on the plate and what you’re drinking. Enrico is probably the chef closest to my philosophy of cooking. He’s really into his vegetable garden and grows the most beautiful vegetables. Alba is famous for Barolo and white truffles but he’s just got a way with vegetables – he’s so delicate with them and incorporates vegetables into all of his dishes. He’s very creative, using lots of extractions and juices and reductions. The flavours are incredibly well balanced but intense and show off his craft in cooking.”

Ristorante Reale

Chef: Niko Romito Location: Castel di Sangro Michelin stars: ★★★

“This is in the Abruzzo region of Italy so it’s a fair drive to get there. From Rome, it’s about four hours. It’s quite a hike but if you can stay there – there are rooms – they do the most amazing breakfast. It has the most impressive dining room, set inside a 16th-century monastery. It was falling down and they rebuilt it to become the restaurant. There are no more than 10 tables – maximum 30 people – and the luxury of space is incredible. Niko, the chef, is obsessed with vegetables. You can choose from a totally vegetable-focused menu or you can have a mix. He’s very singular in his obsession with trying to extract as much flavour from a single vegetable as possible and present it in different textures and cooked in different ways.”

Le Calandre

Chef: Max Alajmo Location: Padua Michelin stars: ★★★

“Le Calandre is in Padua, which is more of a regional town. The family started their restaurant years ago and now Max has taken it over. He’s a really creative chef and always pushing the boundaries. He makes the most extraordinary risotto. He’s similar to Massimo Bottura in terms of being very creative and consistent. The family has a pretty big empire now with restaurants all over Italy. But they still focus on the namesake restaurant and are often there.”

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Joanna is an award-winning travel writer and lifestyle journalist, with more than 20 years of experience across print, digital and broadcast media. The daughter of a pilot (Dad) and a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and food technology teacher (Mum), she was born to be a gourmet traveller. In 2019, she made it official, becoming the editor of Gourmet Traveller and leading the team as they repositioned the title as a luxury lifestyle brand. Before moving to Sydney, Joanna led the entertainment and lifestyle vertical at New Zealand's largest media organisation NZME, which publishes the New Zealand Herald newspaper. She is also an experienced broadcast journalist, spending five years at Television New Zealand, where she covered everything from red carpet live crosses to murder trials. Her career highlight remains interviewing Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders, who were dismayed to learn their Ab Fab characters had inspired most of her life choices. As Saunders exclaimed: “They’re not supposed to be role models!”

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