By Chef Christina Martin
In upcoming articles, I will be sharing some local restaurants that offer plant-based vegan menu items. I recently visited Roman’s Pizza House in Absecon, and they not only offer regular fare, but also plant-based, vegan options.
Owners Olga Lavreniuk and Adrian Roman have a long history in the pizza business. I sat down with Olga and she shared her story.
Olga came to the United States from Ukraine and met Adrian who was from Romania. They worked at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City for Sbarro restaurant and learned the pizza business from Jerry Sbarro and Angelo Balbo.
They had been working there for 10 years when Trump Plaza closed. They loved making pizza and so they decided to start their own business.
In 2014 Olga and Adrian opened Roman’s Pizza House in North Cape May and some of their former coworkers from the casino came along with them.
The business was doing very well, but the commute became tougher when they started having children. In 2018 they opened their second location in Absecon and sold the original location in North Cape May. In 2020 during the pandemic, they had their third child and their business survived with takeout and delivery orders.
While they were building a successful business, their 3-year-old daughter was having an allergy to milk and was not hitting the normal benchmarks for her age. She was ultimately diagnosed with autism, a diagnosis which would shake up any parent. Even today you can see the emotion in Olga’s eyes while she tells her story.
After receiving the news about their daughter, she knew she had to do something. After a lot of research, she made some dietary changes including eliminating dairy and gluten. It was a huge learning curve for Olga as this was all new to her, but as a mother she wanted to help her daughter in any way she could.
Making these changes had a profound impact and her daughter who started meeting her development benchmarks. Ultimately the autism diagnosis was reversed.
She was fortunate that making these dietary changes had such an impact. While learning to live with dietary restrictions, Olga noticed that at some events such as birthday parties, there were children who could not partake in cake, ice cream, pizza – the standard birthday foods, because of their allergies.
She didn’t want to see them miss out on events because there was nothing for them to eat, so she decided to make additions to her menu at the pizza shop so there was something for everyone when families, and groups, came in and someone had an allergy.
It was a learning curve, beginning with her daughter’s diet, to make foods that didn’t include dairy or gluten. But Olga rose to the challenge to help her daughter, and then to add these options to their menu.
In March 2024, Olga and Adrian attended the 40th International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. It was there where they were introduced to plant-based vegan options such as Violife vegan cheese and Eat Meati.
At the same time Janine Riggins, a retired teacher, vegan, and a customer, started consulting with Olga and helped her learn more about vegan products and worked with food purveyors to find the best substitutes for meat and dairy. Riggins, who improved her health by making dietary changes, is a compassionate vegan.
“Helping restaurants add vegan menu items is a labor of love,” she said.
Olga started testing out the products with Janine as taste tester. Many of these dishes have been added to the menu. The most popular menu items are the spinach and broccoli Stromboli with vegan cheese, and the Grandma’s pizza which is a square pie with vegan mozzarella, dollops of red sauce homemade by Olga’s mother, basil, olive oil, oregano and garlic.
The “chicken” Alfredo is another popular dish with customers. Olga said people have brought the pieces of faux chicken back believing it was real chicken.
Eat Meati is the closest to real chicken that I have ever seen in my many years eating vegan. Another story Olga shared was about an employee of a business in the neighborhood who does not eat meat, so he purchased a pizza with faux bacon.
When he got back to the shop the employees ate it not knowing it was vegan. They could not believe after eating it that it was not real bacon. It was that good.
On my visit I tried the gluten-free penne with vegan meat sauce. It was delicious. The homemade sauce hugged the pasta perfectly, with chunks of tomato and just the right balance of sweetness. The faux meat is Beyond Meat crumble, which from personal experience, makes the best homemade Italian meatball. I also tried the gluten-free pizza crust with veggie toppings and Violife cheese.
Roman’s has a lot of fresh toppings to choose from so you can do any combination you like. You can have regular pasta with the meat-free and dairy-free toppings. Olga will create whatever combination to fit your dietary preferences.
She is also very careful to avoid cross contamination, using rice flour under all the pizzas, both regular or gluten-free, to minimize contact in the pizza oven.
If you are vegan, you know the struggles of dining out and not having a good vegan dessert besides sorbet. Order the vegan banana cake and you cannot even tell that it is gluten-free as well. The banana cake is topped with a creamy coconut whip. It is going to be hard not to drive by on my way to work and not stop for a piece.
Family meals are meals that serve up to six people are available that include an entree, salad, garlic knots and either spaghetti or penne. Order ahead and pick up for a convenient weeknight meal. Also, Janine is working on a Veganuary event to be held at Roman’s in the new year. Veganuary is a month-long commitment to going vegan and lasting the entire month of January.
Roman’s Pizza House has something for everyone and puts quality first. If you are going out in a group and you have that one friend, sister, brother, etc., who has dietary restrictions, this is the place to go because it has all options.
Olga said it best: “I believe everyone should enjoy and have something to eat when they are out with family and friends.”
Chef Christina Martin is a dedicated chef educator, passionate advocate for healthy eating, and mother. Christina’s expertise has been spotlighted in Independent Restaurateur Magazine and she has been awarded 2024 Chef Educator of the Year from the Professional Chef Association of South Jersey.
