Chef of the Week: G‑Zen’s Mark Shadle

“I’m coming from the farm right now, and I’m prepping for an event,” said chef Mark Shadle, prefacing his interview with a disclaimer. ​“So I’m going to be kind of bouncing back and forth.”

Shadle’s G‑Universe, which he manages alongside his wife and co-chef, Ami Beach Shadle, is an elaborate system of moving, growing, organically fueled parts — not the least of which is Shadle himself. At 10:30 a.m., the internationally acclaimed vegan chef was already firing on all pistons.

G‑Zen Restaurant, located at 2 East Main St. near the Branford Green, is the epicenter of the couple’s growing enterprise, which has won national recognition. In addition to the restaurant, the Shadles also manage a food truck (Gmonkey mobile) and a sustainable organic farm (Shadle Farm) where they grow many of the ingredients that they serve to their customers. 

The Eagle visited G‑Zen recently in order to observe as Shadle prepared one of the restaurant’s best selling items: a salad topped with homemade ginger dressing and a sample of vegan cheeses, which he made from cashews and fermented quinoa and flavored with accents of tomatoes and horseradish. (See top video)

G‑Zen is open for dinner, take away, and special orders between the hours of 4 and 9 p.m. from Tuesday to Thursday. On Fridays, the restaurant is open from 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. G‑Zen is also for brunch/lunch ever Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and every Saturday evening until 9:30 p.m. For more information about G‑Zen, including the restaurant’s weekend hours, visit its website here. Gentle guests seeking vegan food on the go are also invited to ​“find the G‑Spot” at the Gmonkey mobile website here.

Ami, the founder and CEO of Gmonkey mobile and the G‑Glo Organic Juice Fast, is also the creator of the G‑Glo Total Reboot Program: a 10 day plant-based detox program meant to help customers rejuvenate their bodies through a diet of her design.

“Have you seen this before?” asked Shadle. He reached into an enormous bag of freshly picked greens and emerged with a striking bright pink flower in hand.

“Bee balm,” he said, holding the garnish closer to the light. ​“It’s like a Victorian Era heirloom plant. I found a small stand of it on my property and I propagated the seeds. It’s a really striking plant, and bees love it.”

Handling the bee balm with care, Shadle separated the flower from its stem and added it to a plate, where it joined a display of other leafy greens that had made the trip from farm to table that morning.

The temporary exhibit would later become Shadle’s dish of the day, which he served the dish with a side of freshly baked bread.

A Master Planner’s Vegan Mission

“I wanted to do something different,” said Shadle, referring to his decision to enter the scene of vegan and vegetarian cuisine.

At the time, he recalled, the only places doing serious vegetarian cooking in the United States were San Fransisco and New York City. But though he contemplated moving out of state to pursue his newfound interest, Shadle ultimately settled down in his hometown of Middletown. There, he began working part-time at a local vegetarian restaurant called ​“It’s Only Natural.” He later became its owner and chef.

Shadle, who began his career at a French restaurant in Hartford at the age of 14, is now approaching his 34th year of working in Connecticut restaurants, 25 of which he has spent cooking vegan and vegetarian food.

In that time, Shadle has had plenty of opportunities to travel — to Germany, where he brought home a gold medal from Culinary Olympics; to Washington, D.C., where he worked with first lady Michelle Obama on her ​“Chefs Move to School” initiative; and to Hollywood, where he’s served a host of well- known celebrities including Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Billy Joel, Chrissie Hynde, Danny DeVito, Moby, Kevin Costner and LA’s Chef Tal Ronnen.

Ultimately, however, it wasn’t just novelty that Shadle was seeking; it was also a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.

“I came from a family that grew up on farms,” the chef explained, ​“so I understood how the food sources were changing — getting away from the small farms to the big agribusiness — and that didn’t sit right with me.”

As an amateur cyclist, Shadle had also been inspired by his vegan competitors, who began ​“killing it” on the scene after changing their diets. ​“The correlation between poor health and overconsumption of fatty meat products is no secret,” he remarked.

It wasn’t until 2011 that Shadle opened G‑Zen. In 2013, only two years later, the brand-new restaurant received the Nature Conservancy’s ​“Nature’s Plate Award” for being Connecticut’s most sustainable restaurant.

Planning and Improvising

“It has to become a priority, and you have to plan,” said Shadle, referring to the process of adopting and maintaining a sustainable vegan lifestyle. This is doubly true in the green restaurant business, which relies on the whims of Mother Nature to provide fresh and local produce on a daily basis. 

But sometimes even volatile forces of nature can be upstaged by a man-made surprise, as was the case that morning.

“This lady’s car just died, and I just fixed it,” announced Shadle, wrench in hand, after one of many errands out to his food truck.

Unfortunately for Shadle, the spontaneous rescue had not won him a new customer.

“When I told her it was a vegan restaurant, she declared that she’s a meat eater, and that she needs it three times a day,” he said, recounting the incident. He added, with almost an air of curiosity: ​“she said it in almost a defiant way.”

Shadle is skeptical of those who do not buy into his mission of sustainable eating and living. Ultimately, he believes, we will all be forced to change our habits — not simply by choice, but out of necessity.

“Fifty years from now we’re not gonna have all these resources,” he concluded, turning to his cutting board to attend to a batch of carrots. ​“We just can’t keep this up,” he says as a special photograph of Jerry Garcia, tucked on a shelf in the kitchen, gives Shadle smiling approval from the Grateful Dead.

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