Latinx Chef Xila Caudillo Gets Whimsical With 13 Raw, Vegan Courses At Rabbit

With plant-based foods entering the mainstream, it’s not hard to find a restaurant in New York City that uses the cheap trick of deep frying plants to prove veganism can be just as satisfying as meat. But few restaurants in the city offer a vegan dining experience that is multi-course, raw and an interactive chef’s counter experience. Enter Rabbit, an intimate 12-seat chef’s counter tucked away in Manhattan’s East Village. Led by Latinx executive chef Xila Caudillo and part of James Beard-nominated restauranteur Ravi DeRossi’s growing empire of vegan restaurants, Rabbit offers a 13-course tasting menu in the former space of soul vegan restaurant Cadence (also owned by Overthrow and now located across the street).

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Caudillo’s experimentation with raw vegan food began in high school, when she went down a rabbit hole of vegan food influencers on YouTube, “I remember I made vegan brownies and banana ice cream, and I was like well I could eat this for breakfast, it’s healthy so it’s fine,” she tells me. The Latinx chef honed in on her Mexican cuisine at another one of Overthrow’s restaurants, Etérea, but when she heard DeRossi wanted to open a raw concept, she prepared an outline of the menu that she says brought him to tears.

Now, instead of working behind the scenes in the kitchen at Etérea, Caudillo is up front and center at Rabbit, engaging with guests alongside the also Latinx sous chef Lo Serrano. Having two women of color not only as the face of the restaurant, but creating raw, vegan cuisine is not something Caudillo takes lightly. “This is one of the few times when we’re seeing someone in the Latinx community doing something other than their culture’s food,” Caudillo tells me. “I’ve done that with Etérea but I love being able to step out of that and do other things.”

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While the decision to make the menu raw could be considered strategic in a city filled with cooked vegan food, it was more a matter of necessity. According to Chef Xila, the fire department had issues with the hood in the kitchen, and so it was in everyone’s interest to reduce the amount of cooking in the tight kitchen. The physical limitations work in Rabbit’s favor, as it pushes chef Xila to go down the rabbit hole of possibilities for cooking plants without heat.

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The dark space conjures images of a real life rabbit hole with lush green plants spilling over the marble-topped bar accented with plush green velvet stools and surrounded by dark navy walls. The tight dining room encourages engagement not only with chefs Caudillo and Serrano behind the counter, but with other diners too, creating an intimate atmosphere that’s less stuffy fine-dining and more like hanging out at your neighborhood bar. Instead of approaching the cold, plant-focused dishes with skepticism, the collaborative air encourages diners to lead with curiosity as they sit down to a serviette folded into the shape of a rabbit on my plate, and the placement of the fork and spoon reversed.

A several page paper leaflet reads less like a menu and more like a zine, with collaged imagery and a poem accompanying brief dish descriptions, leaning into the restaurant’s playful, childlike air. On the cover, there is the restaurant’s logo illustrated by artist Gary Baseman—a demonic looking pink Rabbit holding a carrot and umbrella, which the restaurant describes as “a little bit twisted but weirdly familiar.” When I ask Chef Caudillo the idea behind Rabbit, she tells me it was half a desire to evoke the magic and mysticism of Alice in Wonderland and half a play on the joke that vegans eat rabbit food.

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But this is anything but rabbit food here. The first dish is a physical manifestation of the idea of “upside down and inside out” with a thick ring of sliced watermelon guarding a thin layer of gazpacho decorated with flowers and herbed almonds which have marinated overnight. It’s a refreshing sweet crunch to warm up the mouth for what will be a night of a lot of chewing (it’s this incessant chewing that comes with eating raw that is why chef Caudillo says she is now pescatarian). The chewing is most rigorous for the kelp dish: a gold bowl filled with squeaky kelp noodles topped with a Cheez-it inspired feta cheese crisp which diners are encouraged to crumble into the salad. While vegan kelp dishes are usually Asian-inspired, this one—with its salinity and raw red onions—tastes more like a vacation to a Greek island.

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Chef Caudillo honors her Latinx roots, not only with a wine list featuring Latinx winemakers, but with dishes like the al pastor taco, which she says is “close to her heart.” The traditional tortilla is swapped for a purple cabbage leaf that cradles crumbled walnut meat, pico de gallo and pickled habanero. The raw chili gives the dish fire, which we’re invited to cut with acidity from an accompany lime wedge. Latin flavors are sprinkled throughout the meal, like the chimichurri atop a ricotta-filled mushroom cap and the dehydrated plantains used as the salty vessel for an avocado mousse that they might as well call guacamole.

Having 13 courses gives chef Caudillo space to explore a whole range of flavors outside of her Latinx heritage—the menu as a whole takes diners around the globe. The hummus dish—a flaxseed pepita cracker seasoned with zaatar and topped with sumac walnut meat and a harissa salsa—is described as a “Middle Eastern nacho” while the cashew milk palate cleanser—a creamy elixir of saffron, cardamom and rose water—gives the mouthfeel of halva. Fish is not missed with the raw vegan take on sushi: crispy forbidden rice soaked for two days, pressed and dehydrated to become the dense, crunchy base for a slice of watermelon marinated in tamari, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar that tastes shockingly like tuna.

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Creativity knows no bounds with an avocado mousse topped with a thin layer of activated charcoal to imitate soil, “planted” with tiny crudites to be used as dippers. The acidic dish is meant to be a palate cleanser that looks like a miniature garden. A more common raw dish—the zucchini lasagna features sun-dried tomato marinara layered with basil cashew pesto and thinly sliced zucchini, finished in the dehydrator for three hours prior to guest’s arrival, so that it is slightly warm, making it the most “cooked” of all the dishes.

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With the plant focus of the meal, you might expect more natural materials in the plate ware. But save for a few dishes—like the lasagna presented on a wood plank—it’s gold that features heavily as the vessel for Caudillo’s creations. “I think raw is healthy, and health is wealth, so the color that came to mind is gold,” explains Caudillo. The dish that encompasses this idea most is the two-tiered plate of gold leaves on which the forbidden rice sushi is served.

It’s subtle details like this that suggest vegans deserve to feel like royalty too. But at $75 per person, it’s a 13-course meal that’s not completely unaffordable. “I just don’t think it’s accessible,” chef Caudillo tells me, on her experience dining at arguably the city’s highest end vegan experience found at Eleven Madison Park, “that’s Ravi’s goal, for it to be accessible to the average person.” Accessibility, for Caudillo also means being approachable. “It can be a very elevated experience but also very casual,” the executive chef tells me, “we want to engage with guests, joke and have fun.”

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For vegans, Rabbit fills the gap of elevated fine dining experiences that cater to their diet. For non-vegans who might often leave plant-based restaurants feeling like something’s missing, 13 courses ensures they’re satisfied, not only physically, but mentally too, simply thanks to probability—the more dishes you try, the better chances you’ll have something you enjoy. As Overthrow’s director of marketing Tavo Dam tells me over the phone, “Raw vegan food doesn’t have the best reputation. We wanted to put forward this tasting menu so you don’t come in, order one dish and go, ‘I don’t like it.’ Instead, you have this whole range of flavors, textures and tastes.”

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Whether you’re vegan or not, with everything house-made (except for the kelp noodles), you can’t not respect chef Caudillo for the arduous task of making cold plants look and taste as fancy as a carnivorous fine-dining coursed meal. The one thing that’s lacking is dessert. The single dish—a deconstructed blackberry cheesecake sprinkled with glitter—might leave those with sweet tooth wanting more. Good thing Overthrow opened Rabbit’s sister vegan dessert and wine bar—The Fragile Hour, led by pastry chef Lady Ashton Warren—next door, on what is quickly becoming the vegan strip of the city.

Some interview responses have been edited for length and clarity.