Vegan Food Is in Mainstream in Southern California J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times; Anais Wade and Dax Henry for The New York Times; Axel Koester for The New York Times From left, vegetarian sashimi from n/naka; Kathy Freston, a high-profile advocate for veganism, dining at Craig's; the quinoa burger at Golden Road Brewing. IT was a warm California evening in the city of West Hollywood, and Kathy Freston was sipping a martini. "Just because you're a vegan doesn't mean you don't want to have fun," she said, sitting in a booth at a restaurant called Craig's. I'm a decadent gal. I want to drink. I want to feel full at the end of a meal. I just don't want it to have any animals in it, for a variety of reasons. Tall, slim and golden-tressed enough to be mistaken for a movie star, Ms. Freston is the author of books like "Quantum Wellness" and "The Lean," and a high-profile advocate for veganism. She strives to consume nothing that can be traced back to sentient creatures: no meat, no eggs, no dairy. But chilled vodka with extra olives? No problem. Nor did she have any qualms about eating from a menu that includes an 18-ounce bone-in rib-eye steak. Craig's, hatched last year by Craig Susser, an alumnus of Dan Tana's, the age-defying hangout on Santa Monica Boulevard, is not a vegan restaurant. It represents a new culinary wave that can be felt all over Southern California, that reliable ripple-generator of so many national trends: the omnivore's restaurant that courts vegans and vegetarians (particularly the glamorous and powerful ones who are a crucial engine of the dining economy here) by preparing meatless dishes that surpass the droopy steamed-vegetable platters of yore. "You picture vegan restaurants with a lot of people with sandals and dreadlocks, drinking carrot juice," said Ellen DeGeneres, who stopped by with her spouse, the actress Portia de Rossi, to chat with Ms. Freston. Here at Craig's, the mood was more high heels and blond locks. In fact, from power tables in Beverly Hills to pubs in the San Fernando Valley, the surging popularity of plant-based diets is drastically changing the dining landscape. That shift is under way in various cities around the world, but it's happening in an explosive way in and around Los Angeles: at the elite gastronome magnets, at casual gathering spots and everywhere in between. Actors and talent agents hammer out script deals over the Kale Colossus entree at SunCafe in Studio City, a neighborhood of Los Angeles. Vegan celebrities have become such a fixture at Café Gratitude that paparazzi occasionally camp out on the sidewalk. Elegant spots like n/naka and Hatfield's have extensive, ever-changing tasting menus for vegetarians. But the after-work crowd can also head out to Golden Road Brewing, a craft brewery that rises from a sun-baked industrial patch just off the Ventura and Golden State freeways in the Atwater Village neighborhood, for vegan Super Bowl grub (a quinoa burger, a hero with deep-fried avocado slices, meat-free chili) on a menu that makes room for a hillock of pulled pork. "I'm not the food police, but I like opening the vegan door for people," said Tony Yanow, the entrepreneur behind the brewery, as well as Mohawk Bend and Tony's Darts Away, which serve dishes like a "vegan tailgate dog" and Buffalo-style cauliflower florets. People will order food like that because it tastes good. Vegans and carnivores used to glare at one another in militant opposition, but Southern California is reveling in a sort of can't-we-all-get-along cross-pollination that you see at Cru in the Silver Lake neighborhood, where meat lovers marvel over the pumpkinseed chorizo. At Craig's, a vegan grilled-eggplant caponata shares menu space with a dish called Jerry Weintraub's Spaghetti Clam Show, both of which might be viewed as gentle ways to woo the A-listers. Not long ago, Ms. DeGeneres asked Mr. Susser if he would try a vegan spin on chicken parmigiana. The dish appeared on the menu in September, with a patty of Gardein, a protein substitute, standing in for chicken. "I'm willing to do anything," said Mr. Susser, something of an expert in celebrity relations. I want them here, and I want them happy. Ms. Freston, who recently separated from the media executive Tom Freston after 14 years of marriage, is friendly with just about every famous vegan in Hollywood. Lately there are quite a few, and they've changed the power dynamic enough that celebrating a box-office triumph over bountiful platters of charred flesh is no longer necessarily appetizing to the stars who helped bring in the money. "That old meat bravado is dead," Ms. Freston said. It wasn't always thus - not even in the city where Alvy Singer, the protagonist in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," winced as he ordered alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast. When Ms. Freston began turning vegan about a decade ago, she said, "Nobody was interested in that. I remember Werner Herzog yelled at me at a dinner party when I first started going that way. He totally made fun of me. In the beginning I didn't know anyone who was eating this way. It was totally uncool. Finding a sprouts-on-seven-grain-bread sandwich has never been a problem in Los Angeles, but even a few years ago, the vegan chef and cookbook author Tal Ronnen couldn't imagine that his specialty would go as mainstream as it has of late.