Vegan Chef Priyanka Naik to Speak At FoodieCon Miami

South Beach Wine and Food Festival is hosting FoodieCon on the sands of Miami Beach to connect the internet’s most buzzed-about food influencers with their fans. The event offers a two-day “offline” experience that includes meet and greets, demos, food and drinks, panels, and even a happy hour with beloved stage and screen actor Neil Patrick Harris.

“This is one of a kind in that it’s able to bring together all of the best talent in the culinary space under one roof — obviously it’s not a roof, but on one beach!” laughs vegan chef, content creator, and television host Priyanka Naik. “It includes not only all of the ‘traditional celebrity chefs’ that we all know, but FoodieCon brings together the atypical celebrity chefs.”

That includes Naik, who started out as a food blogger while working full-time in tech at major corporations like Bloomberg, Condé Nast, and Twitter. Her nontraditional experience informs one of the panels she’s on at FoodieCon, “Clocking Out, from Cubicles to Content.”

She’ll also sit on the panel for “Cuisine and Culture.” A first-generation American whose parents are from Mumbai, India, Naik grew up vegetarian in the U.S., far from extended family. “Food became a very integral part of staying a part of our culture,” she says. Both panels are “huge defining factors of myself and why I chose this career. And I think they can be very empowering, especially for younger generations.” She wants to let people know that there are many paths they can pursue that could lead to success as a culinary creator.

Though she looked into attending culinary school, Naik ended up foregoing it for a few reasons. One was because she didn’t want to have to cook meat. The other was that schools at the time didn’t focus on Asian food, and she didn’t want to just learn about European cuisine.

That decision made finding TV work more of a challenge. Television networks were discouraged by her lack of formal training, and they weren’t ready for all-vegetarian cooking and the fact that she didn’t “look” like a typical chef. “I’m not a brawny, stern, tatted-up guy. How are we defining chef? In my house, my mom is the chef, and she’s a beautiful woman!… Why do we have these boundaries?” she asks. “I’m not trying to be a doctor without going to medical school.”

She eventually gained wider credibility by winning a Food Network competition Cooks vs. Cons. Soon after, she published her cookbook The Modern Tiffin (she’ll be doing a book signing at FoodieCon), got more airtime, and landed big brand deals. “I think the internet has provided a space where we can actually show off our skill set without anyone telling us no,” Naik observes of the benefits of starting a career online.

Six years ago, Naik moved from cooking vegetarian to all vegan, “mainly for environmental and ethical reasons,” she says. She now has a column in The Washington Post called “Ecokitchen” and a show on Peacock TV Today Table, focused on sustainability, low-waste cooking, repurposing scraps, and composting. She doesn’t focus on the health benefits of cooking vegan but does take a holistic and ayurvedic approach, referencing ancient Indian medicine.

Naik is among, she says, a wide variety of other talented creators focused on eco-living and believes there’s a lot of room for more people to add their voices to this growing space, including as foragers and in fashion. “There’s a lot of men out there advocating for eco-living and dismantling the typical male persona…like eating steak and potatoes,” she adds.

“When I started cooking all vegan, I started thinking back on all of the food we eat at home, and a lot of it was vegan by default because of the type of Indian we are, and where regionally we’re from. A lot of our cooking style doesn’t involve dairy or meat or seafood. I was like, wait, we’re actually eating vegan but we’re not calling it vegan, we’re just calling it food,” she reflects. “So, I hope that the industry evolves in a way where it’s just considered food.”

One of her sisters is a long-time Miami resident, so she had some suggestions on where to eat vegan and vegetarian food in the Magic City.

“I’ve seen the Miami food scene evolve over the last decade,” she says. “Nowadays, there’s just so many more options.” She suggests Planta in Coconut Grove, Hutong Miami in Brickell, Doggi’s for arepas, and for high-end Middle Eastern food, Amal in Coconut Grove, Motek, and Byblos. She also never misses a chance to eat Latin American food while in South Florida.

FoodieCon. 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, February 24, at the W South Beach, 2201 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; sobewff.org.