Chetwan and Anthony Smith opened Sweet Soulfood to serve vegan versions of their favorite local dishes. They got their start serving food at festivals and events before opening their brick and mortar spot at 1025 N. Broad St. This year, they’ll make their debut at Jazz Fest, with a booth in Food Area 2 (near the Cultural Exchange Pavilion). The restaurant normally is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, but it will be closed on Jazz Fest days. For more information, visit sweetvegansoulfood.com or nojazzfest.com/food.
Gambit: How did you become vegan?
Chetwan Smith: I don’t call myself a vegan. I call myself a freetarian. It’s the freedom to choose. Sometimes I am a vegetarian. Or I might eat a piece of birthday cake. I don’t want my life to be so strict. I am a free spirit to the core.
I got into vegan food because I was pregnant. I was about to have my daughter. I was at home. I was on YouTube. The doctor kept saying, you have to watch your blood pressure. I was in mommyhood. You’re in this care-about-everything mindset; you want the best for your kids.
I had to be my best self. If that was letting animals go at the time, that’s just what I had to do. My problem is sweets. I love sweets. They can bring everyone together.
My daughter is 16 now. I’ve been doing this for a while. It’s evolved a lot. I have been on the journey.
We’ve been here for eight years now. Most of our customers are not vegan. We’re not preachy. We have to show love and compassion, humility and humanity to everyone. A lot of people want me to be preachy about animals and all of that. But I am not going to do that. I feel like that’s not loving. We need to have compassion for everyone.
Gambit: What do you serve at the restaurant?
S: We are 100% vegan. Some items have soy in it. Vegetarian means milk, butter and eggs. We’re vegan, so we have no dairy and no eggs. We do use vegan butter, and we use a lot of coconut milk.
We do things that are New Orleans-based. You have to do New Orleans food. You have to cook what people are already eating, just veganize it. I can make everything I cook vegan.
The eggplant lasagna, cauliflower and cashew mac are popular. And the bread pudding. We also have ice cream.
We prepare salads. We started that this month. We have a garden salad with tomatoes and cucumbers. We may add jerk cauliflower or vegan cheese. We make our own dressings. We have a Creole ranch, creamy balsamic and honey mustard. We’ve had a salad bar, but that wasn’t popular. We also made salad one of the side items you can get.
We make our own remoulade sauce as well. We do fried mushrooms on Fridays and Saturdays and serve it with that.
We have specialty items every day. We have lasagna on Tuesday. We have stuffed bell peppers on Thursday. We have red beans on Monday.
The restaurant has been very demanding. I don’t think people realize. We’re open six days a week. I am here at 5 a.m., and we open at 11. We make fresh food daily. This is not fast food, although we serve food fast. It’s a lot that goes into what we do. We may go through 12 cases of cauliflower in a day sometimes, forty cases a week. That’s a lot.
This is a touristy spot. A lot of Uber drivers and hotels recommend us. We’re thankful for that.
Gambit: What will you serve at Jazz Fest?
S: When they contacted us, we thought about it. My husband and I talked it over. We thought we had to jump at the opportunity. We’ve always done festivals, but with the restaurant, we have to mind the baby. With Jazz Fest, we have to close the restaurant. That is why we haven’t done a lot of festivals. We are taking this leap. Our restaurant customers may not be too happy for a few days.
They came and ate our food. They tried our dishes. And these are our most popular dishes. They are the things we make the most every day.
The greens are collards and cabbage. I cook them until they’re briny. There’s a little smoked paprika that gives it a kick. When you brine, it makes things stronger. Our flavors tend to be intense.
Our sweet potatoes are simple. There’s organic brown sugar or cane sugar, and that’s it — no cinnamon or anything else. We want you to taste our sweet potatoes. They’re not out of a can. But there should be a little sweetness.
We have our cauliflower. It’s like chicken. With the sweet heat, we make our own barbecue sauce. It has hot sauce in it, but it’s not spicy. It’s more for flavor.
And we’ll have our cornbread. It’s kind of a cake-y cornbread, but not too cake-y.
Most of our items taste normal. It’s old-fashioned, going back to basics. Like farm to table, authentic food. I feel like that’s why we’ve had such a good response. When you use real food, it just tastes organically better.
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