Hi. I’m Lindsey, your lasagna chef and the founder of Cucina Fantasma.

This all started with burnout. Out of college, I worked as a management consultant, and cooked at Blue Hill Family Meal (a Michelin-starred restaurant in NYC) on weekends. Late one Sunday night, mid-scrub on the restaurant ceiling with dirty water dripping down my arm, my phone pinged, telling me my flight to that week’s client-site departed in 5 hours.

I looked at my life and thought: what am I even reaching for right now?I was either crunching numbers for Fortune 500s or cooking $200+ tasting menus for the people who ran them. When I would tell people at the consulting firm I was working weekends at Blue Hill, their look of shock was quickly followed by:

“If you love food that much... why are you still here?”

Fair enough.So I quit both jobs, flew to Italy, and started living and working on a regenerative farm. Although physical labor under the hot Tuscan sun is not exactly my jam, the lifestyle was heaven. I was coming off two years of not cooking a single meal in my apartment, surviving on takeout in front of a computer screen. There, we were cooking beautiful farm-fresh vegetarian Italian meals and actually sitting down to eat them — together. (!!)My serotonin, health, and vibes were off the charts.

When the Paleo was rained out in Siena, I found myself in a charming wine bar where I met a nearly lifelong vegan. We started dating and traveling around the world together, eating mostly plant-based all the way.Through all the travel and food, I started thinking about how to make the values I developed at Blue Hill my own. Blue Hill showed me that food can be more than delicious — it can be a vehicle for values and positive change. That realization stuck.Restaurants like Eleven Madison Park and Blue Hill have the fine dining thing covered.
But what most people need is a way to eat sustainably on a Tuesday night — something low-effort, high-reward. A way to feed yourself or your family that aligns with the future we want.

With Cucina Fantasma, I wanted to take the idea of vegetables as the star of the plate one step further — and make the whole meal plant-based.

To create an everyday food that’s delicious, ethical, and easy — no compromises. Take-and-bake lasagna felt like the perfect way to do that.

So I came home, opened a spreadsheet, sharpened my knives, and started obsessively testing lasagnas:

  • Almond vs. oat vs. cashew mozzarella
  • Koji vs. mixed microbial cultures
  • Bechamel, ricotta, parm, sauce, alt-meat, noodles…

I went deep on how to best home-make every element.I’m a very critical person. I won’t put something out just because it’s vegan. It has to be interesting, generous, craveable, and worthy of this special time we call dinner.

Luckily, I made a plant-based lasagna that’s exactly that.

Cucina Fantasma exists for people stuck in take-out and computer screen loops who want something home-cooked. It’s for dinners with friends in tiny New York apartments, or special third dates. And, on our best days, it’s about moving towards a future that’s delicious, sustainable, kind, and a little more luxurious.

Enjoy your meal,
Lindsey