Top chefs take ethical, sustainable cooking to heart
Chefs and restaurants, locally and abroad, are adapting to a more sustainable, environmentally friendly, and ethical way of cooking
Sustainability, locality, and provenance have all long been buzzwords when it comes to food and restaurants. Often, they bring with them connotations of the wine-farm eatery that rears its own produce, or the little restaurant that grows its own veg, or the local market that supports small-scale suppliers. These are, for the most part, apt examples of people doing what they can to be environmentally and ethically conscious. However, this past year, as consumers both locally and abroad have become more aware of what and how they eat, the industry has seen a massive shift towards ethical sourcing, sustainable ingredients, and plant-based dining at all levels.
There is the acclaimed Eleven Madison Park in New York, which held the top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017. It has taken the bold move to go almost entirely plant-based (it still serves honey and milk with tea and coffee). Then ONA by Claire Vallée, in Arès, France, broke barriers by becoming the first vegan restaurant in that country to earn a Michelin star. In San Francisco, the three-Michelin-starred Dominique Crenn, who initially took meat off her menu in 2018 as a protest against factory farming, reintroduced it in the form of lab-grown cell-cultured chicken. Soon others followed suit, with an array of the world’s finest introducing plant-based menus either in place of or as an alternative to their standard offerings.
Locally, we’ve seen many chefs and restaurants follow a similar path, with a definite shift towards sourcing produce, embracing environmental consciousness, and supporting local suppliers. At the same time, they also acknowledge the growing consumer demand for vegetarian and vegan dishes. Where once it was considered an annoyance to have to cater to a vegan patron, now many of our fine-dining restaurants offer plant-based dishes as a standard option.
Gåte at Quoin Rock Wine Estate in Stellenbosch is one such example. Upon arrival you’re handed a menu with one side showing the standard offerings and the other the vegan options. And it’s clear that these plant-based gastronomic creations have been given as much attention as those on the “normal” menu. There’s the Quoin Rock twist on a deconstructed minestrone — a vegan dish that kicks off both of the menus — or the beet-steak, which sees the vibrant vegetable used in three ways, accompanied by the crunch of hazelnuts. Each dish has its own wine pairing, ensuring that the plant-based consumer gets the same experience as any other diner.