Tony Maws Is Debuting a Vegetarian Craigie Burger

The Vegetable Burger at Craigie on Main./ Photo by Toan Trinh

Vegetarians, rejoice. The Boston area’s most talked-about burger is getting a vegetarian counterpart in 2018.

On January 9, chef Tony Maws will debut the plant-based Vegetable Burger at Craigie on Main. It’ll be available in limited quantities every Tuesday at the bar only.

Developing a vegetarian version of his lauded beef burger—it once graced the cover of Bon Appétit—was a “natural evolution,” Maws says. Despite being a pioneer in nose-to-tail cooking, “vegetables have always been really important to me,” the Cambridge chef adds.

Like the original, the patty is full of complex flavor and umami. Roasted black beans, brown rice and lentils serve as the base, with fire-roasted mushrooms, tahini, fermented black bean powder, miso powder, and pomegranate molasses also in the mix. Egg serves as the binding agent, so it is not vegan. He’ll roll it out with the same condiments he uses on the beef burger (house-made ketchup, red wine vinegar pickles), but may eventually change them up.

The bar-menu addition is something Maws has been thinking about for awhile. Customer requests for a veggie patty started coming in not long after he debuted the Craigie Burger nine years ago, and his vegetarian brother, Alex, has long been a proponent of the idea.

But he didn’t start working on developing it in earnest until about a year ago because he wanted to really wrap his head around what an ideal vegetable burger should look and taste like.

“I don’t want to think of this as a … substitution [for the meat version], but as its own entity,” Maws says. “It’s what your mouth wants. A really great, juicy burger— no matter if it’s meat or vegetables.”

Available starting January 9 at the bar at Craigie on Main, 853 Main St., Cambridge, 617-497-5511, craigieonmain.com.