By Deirdre Donovan, ZAGAT.com staff editor
The restaurant industry reinvents itself with an eco-conscious eye
London's Acorn House
Photo: Cindy Chen
The greening of the restaurant industry, an idealistic movement that took root decades ago, is now a global phenomenon encompassing both community-based eateries and splashy hot spots. And diners seem primed to appreciate environmentally sensitive cuisine – according to our 2007 America's Top Restaurants guide, 65% of surveyors said they would pay more for food that has been sustainably raised or procured.
But exactly what makes a restaurant green is open to interpretation. For some, it means menus emphasizing concepts like "local," "sustainable" and "organic." For others, it means harnessing alternative energy sources (bicycle-powered blender, anyone?) or banning bottled water.
Below are some ways in which restaurants are going green, followed by a list of resources for the conscientious epicure.
Know Your Sources
One of the most common ways restaurants embrace the green movement is by cultivating relationships with area farmers, a simple idea with far-reaching impact pioneered by Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, which opened in 1971. Today the restaurant works with 60-plus farms, and Waters continues to lead from the front with the Chez Panisse Foundation, which promotes food awareness in public schools.
No longer limited to bohemian Berkeley, responsible food sourcing is now practiced at big-ticket eateries coast-to-coast. In LA, Grace’s Neal Fraser sources 90% of his ingredients from local ranchers who provide their animals with healthy diets and local farmers who reject pesticides. In the Chicago area, Vie's Paul Virant exclusively uses meat and dairy products raised humanely with 100% vegetarian feed and no hormones or chemicals. Celebrity chef Laurent Tourondel’s new BLT Market in NYC’s Ritz-Carlton Central Park features a monthly changing menu focused on first-of-the-season produce and wild and unusual items grown locally.
Some toques are following Waters' lead by promoting social change outside of the kitchen: Ted Walter (Passionfish in Pacific Grove, CA) advocates for sustainable seafood awareness, while Peter Hoffman (NYC's Savoy) works closely with both Chefs Collaborative, a national network of sustainably minded food professionals, and NYC’s Greenmarket.
Become a Farmer
Some restaurants take the farm-to-table movement a step further and grow their own food. When Dan Barber opened NYC’s Blue Hill in 2000, he supplied part of the restaurant’s produce from his Berkshires family farm. Four years later he expanded that vision by opening Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant and educational center on a diversified organic farm 30 miles up the Hudson River where the entire menu comes from ingredients grown or raised on-site. Similarly, Farm 255 in Athens, GA, uses produce from its own seven-acre biodynamic farm as a way to “reconnect food to its roots and people to their food.”
Real estate at a premium? No problem. Growing your own doesn’t require acres of land. Rick Bayless of Chicago’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo grows chiles and tomatoes, mainstays of his menu, up on the restaurants' roof.
Reduce Waste
Restaurants are finding creative ways to make better use of their limited resources. Hugo Matheson and Kimbal Musk, owners of The Kitchen in Boulder, CO, are particularly innovative when it comes to reducing waste. For example, sacks from their coffee roaster are passed to a local farm where they’re used for vegetable storage over winter. Vegetables from the farm then go to the restaurant. The Kitchen claims to eliminate close to 100% of its refuse thanks to such methods, along with mindful food preparation and vigorous composting and recycling.
Another fan of using more and disposing less is Chris Cosentino of San Francisco’s Incanto; he promotes nose-to-tail eating with an adventurous menu prepared in a kitchen that throws away no animal parts. Also in San Francisco, Jardinière recycles or composts almost 85% of its waste and plans to list composting locations on its Web site to help its neighbors do the same.
Increase Energy Efficiency
According to the Green Restaurant Association, restaurants use 33% of the electricity gobbled up by U.S. businesses each year. Alternative power can help offset this. Colorado wind farms provide electricity to the lean and clean Kitchen – the restaurant even donates all leftover cooking oils to a biodiesel-fuel-using neighbor.
In New Brunswick, NJ, The Frog and the Peach recently mounted 58 solar panels on its roof that it hopes will generate 20–25% of its electricity and eliminate 24,000 pounds in carbon dioxide emissions yearly.
Other energy innovators include Chicago’s Hannah's Bretzel, which makes its deliveries with a fuel-efficient, low-emission MINI Cooper; NYC's Del Posto, which recently announced it will join Chez Panisse and others in eliminating bottled water; and the Brooklyn outpost of Café Habana, which uses kinetic energy from a bicycle to power its blender.
Use Eco-minded Products
Restaurants can reduce their impact on the environment by avoiding the use of harmful chemicals and finding alternative sources for common materials. LA's Abode was built using wood planks reclaimed from a 200-year-old Temecula farm. London's Acorn House keeps spruce with eco-friendly cleaning products. And the tables at Chicago’s organic pizza lounge Crust are constructed from recycled tires.