Vegan Travel-Inspired Recipes with Chef Adina | Rachel Adina Mullen

Link for the show notes

In today’s episode, we’re chatting with Rachel Adina Mullen, also known as Chef Adina — a plant-based chef and cookbook author behind the Vegan Flavours of the World series.
Rachel creates globally inspired, plant-forward dishes rooted in traditional cuisines and cultural storytelling, drawing on her travels and experiences around the world.
In this episode, she shares how destinations like Spain, Japan, Italy, and Israel have shaped her approach to cooking, and how plant-based food can be deeply connected to culture, history, and community.
There are a lot of resources and destinations we talk about in this episode, so make sure you check out the show notes and blog post for all the details.

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Transcript

Brighde: [00:00:00] Hello Rachel and welcome to the podcast.
Chef Adina: Thank you so much for having me.
Brighde: I am so pleased to have you here and for you to share with our listeners just how much travel has inspired your recipe creation journey. And I'm really excited to have you talk about these places that have had such a big impact on your life and your work.
So before we get started, would you mind telling our listeners what it is that you do in the vegan space?
Chef Adina: Absolutely. So I love creating recipes that take the essence of a culture and popular dishes—things that people would eat during celebratory situations—and keep their essence, keep their texture, their profiles, all the spices and everything, and just remove all the meat protein and put plant-based in it instead.
In my travels, I am always amazed by the different spices and ingredients that are abundantly available, and I feel like we're limited in the food that we eat. And I really just wanted to build something where I got to incorporate more things and also keep the culture and the feeling you get when you eat something that you haven't eaten since you were a child, and then share it with other people.
And I've never really seen a cookbook where there are multiple countries represented. It's usually we're doing a book on this country, and then you end up buying like 50 books and you're like, okay, which book do I want?
So obviously that was something that I really enjoyed. So that was how it all started—me being like, I want to eat all these types of food. They're not really available for me. The amount of restaurants that I personally enjoy visiting felt limited.
And so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to make these recipes myself. And then it just went from there. And I was like, I have all these ideas in my head, I might as well write them down. And that's how the first book came along.
And I was like, I really want to have more countries. So the whole idea was it's always going to be a four-part volume book series.
So volume one is done, here it is. It actually has just won its second international book award.
Brighde: Congrats.
Chef Adina: It will be on the next print. And then this is my mockup of volume two—that’s why it says not for resale—but it is available online.
Brighde: So for listeners, Vegan Flavors of the World, right?
Chef Adina: Absolutely, Vegan Flavors of the World. And if you type that in, you'll find both. And I'm currently working on the third one right now.
So I'm working also on my travels, because there are two countries in the third book that I haven't visited yet. And I really want to visit all the countries to really get an essence. So we're trying to figure it out.
In the third book I wanted to do still popular countries, but also a couple of countries that I feel are underrepresented. In Africa, I'm going to go to Eritrea. And then also I was like, oh, you know what, I don't think there's much stuff for Bhutan. So I was like, I'm going to do that for one of my Asia countries.
Brighde: Fabulous. I have not been to Eritrea, but I have been to Bhutan. And yeah, it's a beautiful place to visit, and I had some tasty food there—lots of sort of Chinese influence, sort of Nepalese foods. But I'm sure you already know that.
How did travel become central to your culinary identity?
Chef Adina: I definitely think it wasn't one dramatic moment necessarily. I think it was a gradual realization while visiting markets and sitting down to traditional meals.
And I kept noticing that many of the dishes people had been cooking for generations were already plant-forward. A lot of things like lentils, beans, vegetables, grains, herbs, olive oils, spices—these weren’t modern adaptations. They were foundational.
And that really just shifted my entire mindset. Using those items, I could stop thinking in terms of vegan substitutions and just start thinking in terms of honoring traditions that had already been centered around plants.
Brighde: Fabulous. And do you have a strategy when you are traveling to become familiar with a place or to have a lot of experiences when you visit a country? Maybe visiting markets first, doing a ton of research, or listening to podcasts—how do you approach that research process?
Chef Adina: Honestly, I get most of my ideas not always from going into a restaurant and trying food. When I start researching, I go in with a sense of humility and I try to study the history and understand the role of the country and the role of the dish.
A lot of times, if there’s something I want to put in the book, I’ll go online and type in the dish. But instead of looking at other people’s recipes, I’ll look up the origin of the dish.
Because it’s really funny—sometimes you think something originated in one country, but it didn’t. It actually came from somewhere else, or people migrated and brought it with them. And then a spice came on a ship and got incorporated into the cuisine.
And I’m like, that’s really interesting—I love that. So I really try to understand that.
Then I try to preserve the core elements. I use spices, cooking methods, and intention when making the food. And then I adapt something that reflects what I do, but I keep whole ingredients and maintain the spirit of the dish rather than trying to over-engineer and replace items.
That’s how I try to honor the soul of the food—not reinventing it just for novelty.
Every now and then, an idea will pop into my head and I’m like, this is a fusion dish.
Brighde: Right.
Chef Adina: Yeah. And I love it, so some of those did end up in the book. But usually I try to pick something that feels like you would find it in that country—just a slight variation.
Brighde: Awesome. Okay, so we’re going to talk about Spain first. I’m guessing Spain was included in one of your cookbooks that you’ve written so far.
Now Spain is traditionally thought of as being very un-vegan-friendly, but you decided to focus on it in your books. What was that experience like?
Chef Adina: So it was funny because I’ve loved Barcelona and other very popular areas in Spain, but one of my favorite areas is actually in the Basque region.
And it actually has the highest number of Michelin-star restaurants per capita. It’s very special to me because my husband and I got engaged there.
So we go back every six years or so, and there’s this restaurant we absolutely love called Akelarre in San Sebastián.
Sometimes it was challenging because you want to do the tasting menu and I’d have to pick and choose things I could eat. But they have been exceptional.
Especially when we went back for our 10-year wedding anniversary—we emailed them and asked if they could make it vegan for me, and they were so accommodating.
They invited us into the kitchen and we met the chef—it was really amazing.
And I feel like the vegan menu was just as intentional as the refined dishes they usually serve. It didn’t feel like anything was lacking or like an afterthought.
They still included all the technical, elegant, layered flavors.
And it was funny because some items were already vegan, so it was easy to include them. Others, they adapted—like removing fish and replacing it with something else.
But the experience showed me that even high-end restaurants are starting to incorporate plant-based cuisine and see how it belongs at the highest culinary levels.
So it really expanded my confidence in what is possible creatively.
Brighde: Yeah, for sure. That’s amazing. And you’ve also spent quite a bit of time in Japan as well—another country that is not known as being very vegan-friendly, and I can vouch that that is true.
When you go to restaurants—non-vegan restaurants, I should say—what were your takeaways from that destination?
Chef Adina: Yeah, no, I think it taught me to pay attention to restraint. Not every dish needs multiple bold flavors to complete things.
When I was working on my recipes, it sometimes helped me to sit in harmony, and I felt like that was powerful.
The whole thing with Japanese food is to have that fish sauce, that umami flavor. So I was like, but there are ways to do that with different acids and textures and visual components.
You can use things like seaweed—soak it and incorporate it with other ingredients—and you can mimic that taste without having to use non-plant-based items.
So you just have to be a little bit mindful, a little bit creative, and work around things.
So in the second book, I do have Japan included, and I have sushi, and then I actually have a sushi dessert.
Brighde: Oh!
Chef Adina: It’s fruit-based. Yeah, so I thought it was really fun, because people love to understand how to make sushi. And it’s really like—you can put anything in it.
So I just designed recipes and tried to make them visually appealing while keeping the culture in mind.
Brighde: And may I ask where you went in Japan to get these experiences?
Chef Adina: At the time, my sister was living in Tokyo, so we spent most of our time there.
It was great just walking around the city and seeing what was available in restaurants. And especially some of the ramen houses were just great.
Brighde: Alright, fun, fun. Okay, what about Italy and Israel? We’ve paired these two together—tell us about these two destinations.
Chef Adina: Israel is really interesting because I actually lived there for three and a half years.
At the time, I was a child, but my parents raised me vegan, and at that time—in the late eighties—it was not easy.
So I remember baking with my mom, and our cakes were very flat and dense.
Brighde: Very dense.
Chef Adina: Yeah, I was like, I don’t know about this.
But I just felt like the energy of shared plates and dips and salads and breads—the spreads—was really powerful.
And I remember loving going to the market. I was obsessed with halva.
And I actually ended up putting it in my book, because I was like, I love it. Every time you go to the market, they always give you little tasters.
Brighde: Halva is sesame seeds and sugar—kind of a candy or dessert, right?
Chef Adina: Yeah, absolutely. It’s great.
But yeah, the communal style of the food also reinforced that sense of nourishment.
Brighde: Oh yes. I have not been to Israel, but I’ve been to a few countries around there, and I also love that part of it—family-style sharing plates is really fun.
Chef Adina: Yeah, which is very similar to Italy. They love to do family-style.
And I feel like some of their food can be super complex, but also the simplicity of some of the pastas—visiting local markets and seeing how seasonal produce is treated with respect—is really transformative.
They also focus on not over-complicating dishes—just taking truffles and oil and pouring it over fresh pasta, or olive oil with fresh vegetables and herbs.
Even something simple like picking basil from the garden and throwing it on a salad—it really builds the food.
So that country, I felt like there was a lot that I could take from, and it was a little bit easier to make recipes plant-based.
Most of it just involved replacing creams, and luckily nowadays there are so many plant-based cream and cheese alternatives.
So that was less challenging for me while still keeping the essence of the food.
Brighde: Yes, I think Southern Italy is really vegan-friendly, and central Italy too. But in the far north, it can be more challenging for sure.
Chef Adina: Yeah.
Brighde: So throughout all of your travels, have you had any culinary experiences—as well as the Akelarre place in Spain—that have been real standouts to you?
Chef Adina: Yeah, that restaurant in Spain is one that I go back to all the time. There were some places in Morocco that were really surprising.
Every now and then, you're just randomly on the street and you grab a snack, and you're like, oh my God, this is amazing—and you don’t even remember where you were.
But I would say Akelarre is the one place that really stood out.
Brighde: I’m going to have to put it on the list—that would be awesome.
Chef Adina: Oh, if you go, you have to book months in advance.
Brighde: Is it a pricey restaurant?
Chef Adina: Yes, it is pricey. And I think they only do the tasting menu now—it’s nine courses. The food is exceptional.
But yeah, it’s around 600 US dollars per person.
Brighde: Per person—okay.
Chef Adina: Yeah.
Brighde: I’m imagining that if you’ve done the Camino de Santiago, that would be a really fabulous reward.
Chef Adina: Yeah.
Brighde: Because it finishes in Santiago.
Chef Adina: Yeah, it’s definitely an experience. It’s not an everyday thing—you wouldn’t go there every night. You’d be very full.
Brighde: Alright, so you’ve shared some really fun tips on how travel has inspired your work and how you’re sharing that with the world.
You mentioned you’ve got a few more destinations to cover in your upcoming books—where are they again?
Chef Adina: I’m going to go to Eritrea in Africa, and then Bhutan.
Brighde: And tell us—when will the books be out, and what’s your timeline for creating the other two books?
Chef Adina: So volume one and two are out currently—both of them are available.
Volume three, I am currently writing my batch of recipes. The way I like to work is I build my layout, then I write down the recipes that I want to include, and I put notes down.
Sometimes I figure out all the countries and all the recipes first, and then once I have that, I sit down and write each recipe.
And then once I have about 20 or 30, that’s usually when I take my computer into the kitchen and start making them.
At that point, I might adjust things—add something, take something out.
So I would say volume three will probably be out sometime at the end of the year, maybe beginning of 2027.
But I literally just started it about a week and a half ago.
Brighde: Oh, okay.
Chef Adina: Yeah. And volume two—I published it about two weeks ago. I just finished editing it and getting it all ready.
So it’s brand new. Volume one has been out since October 2024.
Brighde: So we’re getting to the end of our conversation. Thank you so much.
I’m curious if you wouldn’t mind answering a couple of rapid-fire questions about vegan travel.
What is your most favorite travel app that helps you get around—food or otherwise?
Chef Adina: When I’m traveling, I love using TripAdvisor—especially when I’m looking for restaurants.
You can put exactly what you want—your location, a radius, the type of food, your budget.
And I also really like HappyCow, because it tells you exactly which restaurants are fully plant-based, which are vegetarian, and which ones have options.
That’s a lifesaver sometimes—because there are certain countries where I’m literally just eating bread for four days and I’m like, oh my God, I’m starving—we need to find a store for nuts and fruit.
Brighde: Right?
Chef Adina: So yeah, those are really great.
Brighde: And are you checked-in bags or carry-on only?
Chef Adina: It depends on where I’m going. I prefer carry-on only because I don’t want to carry a million things.
But if I’m going somewhere cold, it’s almost impossible because everything is bulky—your shoes take up half your suitcase, your jacket the other half.
So it really depends.
Brighde: And are you a packing cube person?
Packing cubes are those zip compartments that help separate your clothes—and the modern ones compress everything.
Chef Adina: Oh, I love that. No, I don’t have those.
I do have an extensive toiletry bag—divided into vitamins, makeup, and those “just in case” items like band-aids—things you hope you never need, but if you don’t bring them, you’ll have to buy them.
Brighde: Sure. And what are a couple of destinations on your bucket list?
Chef Adina: Oh, there are so many places I want to go.
I still want to get to some of the Greek islands—we’re trying to figure out a way to sail around there.
There are so many places in Africa I still want to visit. I’d love to do more travel in South America, and definitely more in Asia.
Even though I travel a lot, I feel like I’ve only seen about 10% of the world.
Brighde: For sure.
Alright, and how can people follow you if they’d like to stay up to date with what you’re doing?
Chef Adina: Absolutely. You can find everything under Adina’s Delicacies—the website is adinasdelicacies.com, and all social media handles are @adinasdelicacies.
And the book is called Vegan Flavors of the World. If you search Rachel Adina Mullen, it should come up.
Brighde: Fabulous. Thank you so much, Chef Adina, for joining me today.
Chef Adina: Thank you so much for having me.