Compendium Volume 8 Australia

SUSTAINABILITY FIRST

SUSTAINABILITY FIRST INTRIGUING EATERIES WITH ECO-FRIENDLY CONCEPTS 1 1 L’ENCLUME, LAKE DISTRICT, UNITED KINGDOM Cartmel is a picturesque medieval town in the idyllic Lake District, and yet hardly anyone would have known this tiny village existed were it not home to one of Britain’s most exciting dining destinations. Newly gilded three-Michelin-star chef Simon Rogan has transformed the old village forge (l’enclume is French for anvil) into a foodie mecca. More than 90 per cent of the ingredients he uses come from the restaurant’s five-hectare organic farm just a few minutes away. Rarely is the somewhat overused catchphrase “farm-to-fork” as accurate as it is here, as many of the ingredients on the evening menu were harvested just hours earlier, including such unusual fare as Japanese wineberries, antler fern or crow’s-foot plantain, a slightly bitter and sour herb served as a vegetable. The team also roams the surrounding forests to harvest clumps of lovage, mountain mint and elderberry. Using nature as a pantry as well as the latest kitchen technology and ancestral knowledge of fermentation and other methods to preserve summer fruits, form the raison d’être of this innovative cuisine. Innovative, indeed: from goat’s milk mousse with cockle butter and charred pear to a tarte of beetroot, rose and smoked pike-perch roe, Rogan is always good for a surprise. 52

2 3 4 PHOTOS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KRISTOFFER PAULSEN, © LOWE, PEDRO NAPOLITANO PRATA, © NARISAWA, SIMEON JOHNKE; OPPOSITE PAGE: © L'ENCLUME 2 BRAE, BIRREGURRA, AUSTRALIA This is world-class cuisine in the proverbial middle of nowhere, an hour-and-a-half drive southwest of Melbourne. Dan Hunter, influenced by his time at Mugaritz, opened his first restaurant on a 12ha organic farm. Olive groves, beehives and free-range chickens dominate the scene, and many of the ingredients are homegrown. Seasonal vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries and grains characterise the 15-course tasting menu, which changes daily depending on the yield. 3 LOWE, DUBAI Still relatively rare in the Emirates, husbandand-wife chef duo Kate Christou and Jesse Blake focus on sustainability in their unstuffy restaurant with lots of light wood, concrete and an open kitchen. The vegetables from their own garden are enjoyed in their entirety: creative uses are found for stalks, leaves and stems. Even their signature sourdough ice cream was born of a reluctance to throw away leftover bread. Much of the food is cooked over an open fire, and when meat is offered, it’s nose-to-tail. 5 4 CORRUTELA, SÃO PAULO Chef Cesar Costa has guts. The Alice Waters protégé opened his restaurant – where everything revolves around vegetables, grains and sustainably fished seafood – in the middle of a meat-obsessed Brazilian city. Ecological awareness is at the heart of everything he does; only organic ingredients make it into the kitchen. Corrutela also has its own compost and cooks with its own solar energy. A signature dish is the “fake” risotto made with sunflower seeds, pecans and porcini mushrooms. 6 5 ESSIGBRÄTLEIN, NUREMBERG, GERMANY Every morning, 365 days a year, Andree Köthe is out and about in the Nuremberg countryside. He collects everything that makes his cuisine so fresh and distinctive, from forgotten herbs and roots, shoots, leaves and stems to dill and quince blossoms. Whatever he brings back, he and his comradein-arms Yves Ollech process into dishes full of inventiveness and imbued with artistic nuance – for the most part, based on vegetables. A unique approach worthy of its two Michelin stars. 6 NARISAWA, TOKYO Yoshihiro Narisawa calls his style “satoyama cuisine”, from the Japanese words “sato” (village) and “yama” (forest). The extremely seasonal menu is directly inspired by Japan’s nature, and the kitchen sources all ingredients directly from small producers – without middlemen. “Everything is organically grown and we only buy the amount we need, so we have no food waste,” says the two-star chef. His signature dish: Bread of the Forest, a hearty bread baked with a candle tableside and encircled by a wreath of grasses, flowers and fruits. 53