Herbivore’s veganizes the next Monday Night Foodball

After Max Musto woke from his first ibogaine dream state, he looked down at the cheeseburger, chicken wing, and pork belly tattoos on his arm and received a message from the universe:

“You can’t do this anymore.”

Musto, a classicality trained cook, spent nine years on the line at spots like Spiaggia, Xoco, and Au Cheval, and he had the scars to prove it. That was six years ago. Since graduating from culinary school the relentless grind had necessitated six surgeries—five on his knees and a sixth on his back. “I don’t think long hours, constant urgency, and nonstop movement on the line without real breaks was the healthiest environment for me, in more ways than one,” he says. “Managing pain became a daily negotiation.” Over time that led to an opioid addiction, and then a heroin addiction, which eventually led him to a clinic in Cancun.

Ibogaine is a psychoactive compound first derived from the bark of the Central African ibogo tree. It’s illegal in the U.S. despite studies that indicate its promise in the treatment of opioid addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly in veterans.

Turns out it’s good for line cooks too.

Arancini by Herbivore Credit: Max Musto

“I had a massive awakening from it,” he says. “It’s like I was sleeping, and suddenly woke up to my true identity. This experience showed me everything. It showed me all of my trauma; all the things that I was avoiding. It showed me there’s just one energy, and it’s operating through all of these different vessels and vehicles. I am the animals, and the animals are me. When I eat them, I contribute to their suffering. And that I am also internally suffering, because everything is energy, everything is matter. And what you eat you become. What you think you become.”

Musto hopes you’ll wake up too, when he brings his long-running all-vegan Herbivore to the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Thattu.

After his initial ibogaine experience Musto had to relearn how to cook.

“A lot of the things that I was classically taught, we’re now doing differently. For instance, you would never put potatoes in a Robot-Coupe to blend them, because they’re going to be gummy. Well, now we’re doing that because we’re making a cheese sauce.”

Musto launched Herbivore during COVID, embarking on a tireless schedule featuring veganized versions of the things he once loved to eat—pizza puffs, Italian beef, Big Macs, and plant-based manifestations of the sophisticated Italian dishes he loved to cook.

He also overhauled his worldview. “It expanded into a commitment to serve the collective,” he says. “I moved from focusing only on personal ethics to addressing the structural inequities that shape health, access, and nourishment.”

He began studying for a masters in social work at Northeastern Illinois University, with a focus on food insecurity, health equity, and food awareness in underserved communities. He’s currently interning at Rush University’s Social Work and Community Health Service, where he conducts cooking workshops that address hypertension on the city’s west side.

Max Musto of Herbivore Credit: @maxjmoorefilm

Until Musto graduates, Herbivore pays the rent, thanks to a large and dedicated following that will wait for hours in line for his take on the Big Mac, made with Impossible ground beef.

That’s one of the few commercially produced meat substitutes he uses. Most ingredients he makes from scratch, like the fennel-and-chili seasoned Italian sausage textured vegetable protein (TVP) in his pistachio pesto risotto with sun dried tomatoes (with an assist from local vegan cheesemaker Cheez & Thank You’s pecorino Romano surrogate.)

His Italian dishes are more labor intensive, and therefore less common, than his American-style comfort food, and they have their own cult following

The risotto is a new setup, as is the cacio e pepe he’s serving: spaghetti tossed in a creamy pink peppercorn vegan butter-pecorino sauce.

He’s also balling supersized arancini: Impossible meatballs jacketed in panko-crusted arborio rice, deep-fried, and plated in a bath of the San Marzano Sunday gravy he’s been making since he was six.

Some dishes he’s serving for the first time, like an Impossible double smashburger on brioche with his own aioli, caramelized onions, TVP bacon bourbon jam, pickles, and vegan American cheese.

He’s also debuting his take on the Filet-O-Fish: kombu brined tofu—”to taste like the sea”—panko crusted, deep fried, and topped with spherified kelp “caviar.” The banana cream pie is new too, made with ethically sourced canned coconut cream, “free from monkey labor.”

Banana cream pie by Herbivore Credit: Max Musto

Apart from Musto’s parmesan truffle fries, this menu abounds in new and uncommon Herbivore dishes.

They’ll become rarer still after he graduates in a year. From there, Herbivore will transition into something else as Musto builds a private practice focused on plant-based nutrition, plant medicine, psychedelic therapy, and psychotherapy “My whole idea is to blend the unique therapeutic practice that focuses on mind, body, and spirit, and then support individuals healing from trauma, addiction, and systemic harm.”

So get it while you can at 2601 W. Fletcher in Avondale. Musto starts ladling risotto and stacking smashes at 6 PM. Happy hour starts at 5 PM and goes until 7, with $5 beers and nonalcoholic drinks, and $12 bespoke cocktails by bar manager Melanie Hernandez—who will also host Grinch Bingo breakouts, along with other holiday

games.Meanwhile, there’s just one more Foodball to go before a brand new 2026 lineup drops. MNF vet Ryan Cofranceso’s Morgan Street Snacks rings it in on January 5.