What makes a restaurant green is a grey area. For some it's being organic, for others it means putting a name to their meat producer, while another school of thought considers meat unsustainable full stop. There are no clear cut rules when it comes to running restaurants that minimise their impact on the planet. Organic produce, which includes local sourcing, seasonality and chemical and GM-free are all benchmarks, but dig deeper and other snags arise. Is it better to be strictly organic or just local, if you have to choose?
The feeling is that a locally sourced non-organic product is better than a so-called “organic” one that has been flown across the world. Seasonality is key – eating fruit or vegetables out of season from a heated greenhouse can leave a larger carbon footprint than the jet-fresh alternative. While health is one issue, a social conscience counts too - from buying Fairtrade products to supporting the local community. Minimising waste through recycling and composting and cutting energy consumption come next.
Then there's the question of restaurant decoration - are the fixtures and fittings sustainable? Is the paint low chemical? And what’s the power source? A green standard for restaurants is still some way off, but the number of interested owners and chefs is growing. Meet the good guys - the restaurateurs and chefs who are making a difference.
Chez Panisse, Berkeley, USA
Alice Waters practically invented green dining when she opened Chez Panisse in 1971. Waters is a trailblazer for seasonal, locally sourced, organic produce and the creator of a light and clean cuisine, which has become known as the Californian way of cooking. She also supports the local community through the Chez Panisse Foundation, set up to celebrate the restaurant's 25th anniversary to teach children about food and sustainability. An offshoot programme, the Edible Schoolyard initiative, gets urban state school kids to grow, harvest and prepare nutritious food as well as promoting environmental issues and community spirit.www.chezpanisse.com
Waterhouse, London, UK
Arthur Potts Dawson, the ex- River Cafe chef opened Acornhouse, London's first sustainable restaurant, in gritty King's Cross in 2006, quickly followed by the Waterhouse beside Regent’s Canal. With Acornhouse, he turned an unpromising 1960s office block space into a model of ethical living: floors and furniture made from sustainable and recycled materials, walls decorated with low chemical paint, water filtered not bottled, a rooftop vegetable garden and the whole place powered by wind energy. The Waterhouse follows the same eco principles but, given its waterside location and name, also utilises hydro energy. Food waste from the restaurant is turned into compost via a wormery, added to the vegetables and herbs growing in the garden for the kitchen, then the process starts again. www.waterhouserestaurant.com
Restaurante Aponiente, Cadiz, Spain
Plankton, marine lettuce and algae are not noted delicacies. But chef Angel Leon is a man who admits to being obsessed with the sea has brought them to the menu at Aponiente in southwestern Spain. Leon is an expert on fish, shellfish and seafood and has catalogued 100,000 marine species. For Leon, serving plankton is as sustainable as it gets believing it’s a way of eating food from the sea without causing environmental harm. As well as using fish eyeballs as sauce thickeners, Leon has pioneered a way of using olive pits instead of toxic carbon for grilling, barbecuing and braising. In a world where fish sustainability is the big issue of the day, eating here is a revelation. www.aponiente.com
Biomio, Copenhagen, Denmark
Copenhagen's largest organic restaurant has relatively few staff: customers are given an electronic order card and choose the dishes they want from the chefs in the open kitchen. They've cut out the middleman, so you order your food directly from the person who cooks it. A buzzer announces when it’s ready. All the ingredients are organic and the menu comes with inspirational nutritional notes, detailing what is good for you and why. The best news? Deserts are good for you too: the BioMisu, made with mascarpone and skyr (a light Faroese dairy product similar to crème fraiche) "contains less fat than tiramisu and is packed with vitamin C and bone strengthening calcium." There are plans to open more branches in Denmark. www.biomio.dk
De Kas, Amsterdam, Holland
Founder and owner Gert Jan Hageman, a former Michelin-starred chef, took a five year sabbatical before converting a greenhouse into his dream restaurant. The menu changes daily, depending on the locally sourced produce available - and that means vegetables, herbs and edible flowers grown in De Kas's own nursery surrounding the glass walled restaurant, as well as land they own 10km outside Amsterdam. Produce is picked at sunrise, to hit the plate is as fresh as possible. From May to October diners are invited to tour the vegetable garden or take a workshop with the De Kas "green brigade." As the restaurant has become too popular to supply all it needs, local environmentally conscious farmers make up the shortfall. But this is not just for vegetarians: dairy products and organic meat come from one trusted supplier, while fish is caught daily. www.restaurantdekas.nl
Red Lantern, Sydney, Australia
Vietnamese food writer Pauline Nguyen opened Red Lantern with her brother Luke, now an acclaimed chef, and partner Mark Jensen, with a view to promoting ethical eating - as well as the Nguyen siblings' homeland cuisine. Their environmental footprint is so faint it's practically non-existent. That they use local and organic sustainable produce is a given. They work with producers who rear their animals slowly and with care; they use only line caught fish and sustainable seafood; the fruit, vegetables, poultry and coffee are all organic. The team recycle everything they can and have installed a compost bin for food waste. Cooking oil is collected and recycled into biodiesel, which avoids dumping in landfills. They also use a waterless wok, which significantly reduces the amount of water used in the cooking process. So much so that they urge any restaurant cooking with woks to invest in a waterless version. www.redlantern.com.au
This excerpt is taken from Hong Kong Tatler’s annual Green Issue. To read the article in full, please pick up a copy of HK Tatler’s July 2011 issue.
