Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Mike Tyson May Open Kosher Vegan Restaurants

A few months after he called meat “poison” in a widely publicized Details magazine interview, Mike Tyson may put his money where his mouth is with a chain of vegan – and possibly kosher – eateries. The New York Post reports the retired, facially tattooed boxing champ is in talks with Moshe Malamud of collectible-coin hawkers The Franklin Mint to launch a high-end restaurant chain.

”The two talked shop at Malamud’s favorite kosher eatery, Solo, on Madison Avenue, where Tyson dined with his pregnant wife, Lakiha Spicer, on mushroom soup and mixed vegetables,” the Post reported. Solo, arguably one of New York’s trendiest kosher restaurants, has hosted famous guest chefs like former Top Chef-testant Eli Kirshtein.

A representative for Solo reported that the two discussed kosher and vegan dining concepts, along with potential names, “but that nothing was finalized.” The Boston Herald cheekily asked “was ear on the menu?”

While reports on Tyson’s would-be kosher venture on news, sports, and foodie sites alike have been using “kosher” and “vegan” almost interchangeably, the latter doesn’t automatically mean the former – at least according to Chabad. “A vegan restaurant would not have a hard time getting kosher certification. However, as long as there is no such certification one should not eat there,” a posting on Chabad.org says. “It is possible for a minute quantity of animal products to be included in a vegan-certified food.”

Malamud, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to share Tyson’s herbivorous predilections; in a 2008 NYMag.com profile of then-Solo chef and “Top Chef” season 3 winner Hung Huynh, Malamud waxed rhapsodic over the restaurant’s gefilte fish.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.