Las Vegas is known for its superb dining options, but not so long ago, walking into a restaurant and asking for vegan or plant-based options was precarious. Today, the Valley’s vegan options are booming.

Downtown’s VegeNation was one of the first plant-based restaurants to open here in 2015. It’s owned and operated by Donald Lemperle, a chef with more than 30 years experience who was inspired to open VegeNation after adopting a plant-based diet.

Lemperle recently made a different leap into this world with the launch of Contrapunto, a plant-based modern-Italian concept. The name is Italian for “counterpoint,” and the chef aims to encourage folks to think about food differently—to understand that eating healthy can still be a great experience.

So far, Contrapunto has presented two pop-up dinner experiences, including a recent four-course meal at Vegas Test Kitchen that served as a fundraiser for the nonprofit Garden Farms Foundation.

A creamy portobello mushroom buckwheat noodle soup kicked off the evening. A farro chopped salad came next, with grapes, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, hazelnuts and blue cheese on a bed of assorted greens, all tossed in lemon pepper vinaigrette.

The main course featured lasagna covered in sausage Bolognese and stuffed with roasted vegetables and ricotta made from cashews. A beautiful chocolate souffle cake with a marshmallow center, graham cracker streusel and chocolate ice cream topped things off.

Lemperle wants to eventually open a brick-and-mortar Contrapunto, “a much different concept than what I’m doing at VegeNation, where that’s like comfort food, food the people are aware of,” he says. “I want to be able to break barriers using different pastas [and] different grains, and just have a lot of fun with it—something where I could unleash my creativity.”