About Us

To trace back the story of TORN Restaurants, one needs to go back to 2013 when I, Cedric – one of TORN’s founders – spent weeks backpacking in Peru. My improvised hitchhiking skills brought me to Pucallpa, a city in the Amazonian rainforest of eastern Peru. From there, after sailing for about 24 hours on the Ucayali River, I was warmly welcomed by a Shipibo tribe, who are one of the oldest and largest tribes of the Western Amazon area.

After some time spent with the Shipibo tribe, it became clear that they were unfortunately going through very difficult challenges related mainly to the deforestation of the area, which is destroying their habitat. I was repeatedly implored to try and do something to help them out. Feeling completely powerless at first, this experience became engraved forever and ever in my mind.

It’s only in 2016, shortly after moving to Canada, that I found out about Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, a documentary that explains how animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation and rainforest destruction – which I had no idea! After being shown such undeniable proof, it became clear to me that my way of helping the amazonian tribe I had met 3 years before would be through veganism. I started out by becoming a pescatarian, then a vegetarian, and finally a vegan. 

Originally from France, it was hard at first to forget about all the delicious dishes I was used to, especially after having spent years in the hospitality and food & beverage industry. The last few years have seen such an increase and improvement in vegan products though, and I quickly realized that I was not going to miss out much by being a vegan. With the help of Jon – a fantastic partner and co-founder of TORN – we came up with delicious, healthy and filling French recipes of what I was craving, tweaking them to make them fully vegan, and using only fresh, high-quality ingredients. We then decided to share our creations with the rest of the world, helping the cause and making it easier than ever to become a vegan!

Our goal now through TORN Restaurants is to give back to the beautiful people of the Amazon rainforest who welcomed me few years ago, by reducing animal products consumption in Canada thanks to delicious vegan French food; and by generating enough profits to help them financially with the challenges they face – a lot of them caused by our meat consumption frenzy.

Making the Earth a better place has never been easier – one sandwich, one dish at a time. A Delicious and Helpful task that no one can refuse.