Virtuous Pie spices up vegan pizza with kimchi, jackfruit

Jim Vesal, executive chef at Virtuous Pie, tries to inspire lust for vegan pizzas with innovative flavours like Kim Jack, which includes includes kimchi and jackfruit as toppings.

Eschewing animals for plants, he turns to cashews, almonds and tofu to make the cheese-substitutes mozzarella, ricottaor feta that givehis creations that cheesy texture.

His most popular flavour is Stranger Wings,a buffalo cauliflowerpizza with a blue cheese sauce the name was inspired by the recent Netflix series Stranger Things.

The Med is made with baba ganoush, falafel, roasted red peppers, caramel olivesat a little bit of feta.

Vesaljoined host Gloria Macarenko on CBC's Our Vancouver to offer a sample of one of their most "out there" flavours: the Kim Jack which is also made with gochujang, a Korean red chili paste.

"It kind of tastes like pulled pork," he said."It has the same texture."

"It's fantastic," said Macarenko, after taking a bite, "Not too spicy. It's got the crunch to it too."

But don't look for a lot of "faux meat" on Virtuous Pie's menu anytime soon. Vesal said he tried creatinga "meat lovers" pizza with six toppings of tofu and other meat alternatives, but it was a failed experiment.

To watch JimVesalshow Gloria Macarenkothe food on Our Vancouver,click here.