Before he became the best-known American chef and entrepreneur of plant-based Italian food, Matthew Kenney was a kid growing up in a town of 1,500 people in Southern Maine. His bedroom window overlooked the misty shore of Penobscot Bay. He roamed the damp woods, foraging for curled green fiddleheads, harvested honey and canned vegetables from the family garden.

Kenney landed his first restaurant job at Malvasia, an Italian fine-dining establishment in New York City’s Upper East Side. There, he learned the fundamentals of Sicilian cooking from Executive Chef Gennaro Piccone.