Inside the feud between notorious vegan & celeb chef

A war has broken out between notorious activist and OnlyFans creator Tash Peterson and celebrity chef John Mountain after he banned all vegans from his restaurant.

Perth restaurant Fyre has been the battleground for weeks since Mr Mountain posted on Instagram in June that “all vegans are now banned”.

The ban, which cited “mental health reasons”, was in response to a customer complaint about the restaurant’s failure to accommodate their dietary needs.

A group of activists, including Ms Peterson, began protesting outside the restaurant shortly after the announcement.

However, Ms Peterson has denied the protests are due to the ban.

“I’m there on behalf of the non-human animals who are subjected to rape, enslavement, torture, abuse and murder. It’s got nothing to do with him banning vegans,” she said.

During the second demonstration on Saturday, July 8, chaos erupted inside and outside the restaurant.

As patrons dined inside, activists swamped the venue, playing audio of pigs squealing through a megaphone.

In one video posted to Instagram, Ms Peterson enters the restaurant screaming that “the sounds you hear now are pigs screaming for their lives in carbon dioxide gas champers, they burn from the inside out”.

“You are responsible for their murder if you are not vegan and their blood is on your hands,” she said.

Ms Peterson and Mr Mountain faced off during the clash.

After the run-in, the restaurant on Thursday night shared that Ms Peterson and her boyfriend were now legally barred from entering the premises.

The notice informed the pair that they would be committing trespass and the business would “take all appropriate steps to remove and exclude you”.

According to the restaurant’s solicitor, a copy of the trespass notice has been given to the Joondalup Police Station.

“Hahahahahaha and so it begins,” the restaurant posted to Facebook with a picture of the letter.

A few hours later Ms Peterson revealed on Instagram that she would continue to protest and filmed a clip showing herself throwing the barring notice papers into a fire pit.

“I will continue to go into restaurants and places with liquor licences if they are profiting and serving animal abuse, torture and murder,” she said.

“No one can stop me from bringing to light the largest holocaust in human history where trillions of non-human people are brutally murdered for human pleasure.”

’Thanks vegans’

The restaurant was also inundated with one-star reviews on its Google page.

The backlash initially made Mr Mountain “fearful” for his business, but due to the attention bookings ”flooded in”.

“Sadly for the vegans, this has been the best marketing that’s ever happened to me, thank you so much I love the vegans,” he told Perth Now.

But while the war hasn’t stopped patrons from attending, it has impacted Mr Mountain’s personal life.

Earlier this week, while choking back tears, he revealed on A Current Affair the dispute had cost him his relationship.

“I lost my partner because of this, I lost a relationship, I thought I was going to marry this woman and she just couldn’t handle the amount of attention – thanks vegans,” he said.

“She was the perfect partner.

“But it was too much for her, she’s very private and she didn’t want any of this to get out.

“If these protests didn’t occur this wouldn’t have happened, so I directly blame (vegans).”

Who is Tash Peterson?

Tash Peterson began making headlines across Australia when she started pulling bold stunts, including holding a severed pig’s head in front of a butcher and walking topless, covered in blood, into a Louis Vuitton boutique.

She was put off eating meat when she watched hit the 1995 hit movie Babe, which was about a farm pig.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t really care to be around other humans at all,” she told NewsWire last year.

Ms Peterson, who was raised in Perth, said she had always had “a special connection” with animals but only made the life-changing decision to become vegan when she was 22.

The activist, who boasts 18,000 Instagram followers, has previously working as a lifeguard but was let go due to her public demonstrations.

In 2021, she decided to start an OnlyFans account to help her become a full-time animal rights activist.

“I’m donating to animal sanctuaries and other animal rights organisations all the time,” she said.

“I’m not living a lavish lifestyle, I don’t own a house – most of the money I make is going towards non-human animal rights one way or another.”

Ms Peterson said her activism comes with a hefty price tag, often having to pay fines and legal fees.

Who is John Mountain?

British-born John Mountain has worked with top chefs across the UK, including Heston Blumenthal.

In 2000, he opened Mosaica in Wood Green and got rave reviews from London foodies.

Following his success, he was scouted for television and appeared on the Great British Menu and the Chef Race UK v US.

But after years in the spotlight he was keen to settle down, and in July 2016 he decided to move to Australia and eventually opened Fyre in Perth.

How the war began

On June 19, Mr Mountain took to Instagram to announce a ban on vegans from his restaurant.

“Sadly all vegans are now banned from Fyre (for mental health reasons),” he said.

This came after a dispute with a plant-based customer who was not provided with a vegan meal in an administrative mix-up.

Mr Mountain said the patron threw the first punch and was “very personal” in a written complaint before taking to a vegan Facebook page to blacklist the restaurant.

“Overnight I got hundreds of one-star reviews from people that have never been to the restaurant, alleging all sorts of sh*t,” he said.

Despite being “ridiculously” stressed and having lost his partner, forcing him to move from a waterfront property to a “tiny crack house”, Mr Mountain said he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

“Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes,” he said.

The chef has also since scrapped plans to one day build a sister restaurant to Fyre, a plant-based bistro that would have been named Urth.

“Now I’m only opening steak restaurants,” he said.

“I’m going to kill as many animals as I can.”