By Katherine Price: Meet Michelin’s new green star restaurants
Last month, Michelin Great Britain & Ireland announced four new winners of a green star: Apricity in London’s Mayfair; Crocadon in St Mellion and Culture in Falmouth, both Cornwall; and Osip in Bruton, Somerset.
Introduced to the region in 2021, consistent with its other accreditations Michelin is unclear on what exactly it takes to achieve the award, however it has said a green star “highlights restaurants at the forefront of the industry when it comes to their sustainable practices” with “outstanding eco-friendly commitments” and a “strong commitment to sustainable gastronomy”.
However, the Guide has said inspectors will consider things such as: the provenance of the ingredients, the use of seasonal produce, a restaurant’s environmental footprint, food waste systems, general waste disposal and recycling, resource management, and the communication between the team and guests about the restaurant’s sustainable approach. There are just 29 restaurants to have been awarded the accolade in the UK and Ireland.
A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report highlighted how changes in the food sector can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make it easier for people to lead low-carbon lifestyles, warning that the window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all was “rapidly closing”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said that “our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once”, underlining the importance of every individual and hospitality business taking action to make their businesses more sustainable.
Hyperlocal sourcing
All the new Michelin green starred restaurants have at their core an ethos of sourcing locally and seasonally, strong relationships with suppliers that share their ethics, and designing their menus around what is available – or in Osip’s case, not having a menu at all.
“I think our biggest success in this area has been learning how to use the limitations and unpredictability of the natural world to our advantage in the kitchen. There are inevitable restrictions from a farm-to-fork methodology – things don’t always go to plan and the constant state of flux in the weather definitely makes things hard. But as a result, we’ve had to become more adaptable and agile in what we do. It’s forced our hand at pushing creativity to the maximum and working with only what’s available to us, which keeps things exciting day to day,” explains the chef behind Osip, Merlin Labron-Johnson.
“Equally, the watershed moment of the Covid pandemic has proven to us that working hyper-locally is a beneficial economic proposition. That’s something we’ve seen succeed first hand, which is testament to the scalability of sustainable practices at a global level.”
Regeneration is the priority at Apricity, both supporting regenerative agriculture but also maintaining a sustainable team and supporting the local community.
Shaping service to prevent food waste
Hylton Espey, chef-owner of Culture, only offers one tasting menu at the restaurant, which allows him to prepare for exactly the number of guests eating at the restaurant each day.
“That means my food waste is a lot less and I order from the farmers almost to the portion of what I need. I’m cooking very precisely. I’m quite confident in my products so I don’t over-order,” he explains. It also ensures he’s paying close attention in the kitchen so as not to overcook any ingredients.
He also forages according to what is needed for each service and has identified 22 ingredients through the year that are on his way to work, such as sea beet, three-cornered leek, alexanders, and nettles. And all ingredients are used as fully as possible.
“When you’re trying to present something in a refined, modern way, the way you’re trained to do it is to chop it up into little squares,” says Espey. “We use the whole potato, the skins and the flesh, we’re not wasting anything.”
Closed loop operations
2008 Roux Scholar Dan Cox, meanwhile, has spent the last five years developing an organic farm with a “soil-centric” focus at Crocadon.
“For me, the green star couldn’t be more important… what we’re doing here is so much more than is possible in your average restaurant,” he says.
“I did become quite disillusioned with our industry in the sense that I just couldn’t see myself opening a restaurant in London and having to face all the challenges I was already facing.”
He adds: “Just recycling isn’t going to help make the world more sustainable. It’s challenging the things that we buy and bring into a restaurant.”
Building the business from the ground up has allowed Cox to ensure systems are in place to make it as self-sufficient and closed loop as possible, divert waste streams and make sustainable decisions from the start. For example, bones are turned into glazes for the onsite pottery, the ceramics from which are used in the restaurant.
“If other restaurants had a relationship with a ceramicist that was able to process things in that way too that would start to make a change, but that is an industry-wide issue that needs a lot more help to be better. There needs to be a bone collection rather than these things going into landfill,” says Cox.
Wheat and barley are also grown on the farm, which are both sold and used to make the restaurant’s bread. These also feed into the estate’s microbrewery, and there are plans to open a small bakery.
Looking after the soil
Soil health is key to the farm’s principles, a field of research which is relatively underdeveloped but the importance of which is beginning to emerge.
“A lot of it isn’t new, a lot of it is just going back to pre-World War II… looking at how people used to farm sustainably. Back then if you didn’t farm sustainably, you wouldn’t have a farm for the next generation,” explains Cox, who has taught himself the principles of soil-centric farming through online resources, books such as Teaming with Microbes and Charles Darwin’s The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms, as well as attending events such as the Oxford Real Farming Conference and meeting like-minded people.
Meanwhile, he stresses the importance of dialogue with the external suppliers the restaurant does use to ensure they can also improve the way they do things: “It’s about having open discussions about what you can do together to make the situation better. What do you need to be better? What do you need to make it viable for you? These are the questions that aren’t often asked.
“It’s not just about using suppliers that are better, it’s about helping other suppliers that you’re currently working with to be better. Often decisions are based on cost alone.”
‘The new ultimate accolade’
Cox points out how just one restaurant in the UK has both three Michelin stars and a green star – Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria. “[It] has become the new ultimate accolade,” he says.
“It’s increased the level of what you consider to be the ultimate accolade in the industry and it’s been done through sustainability.”