Acorn House: Eat, Drink and Be Green
by Bonnie Alter, London on 01.10.07
Acorn House is a green, eco-restaurant with a serious mission. Built from organic and recycled materials, it looks like a proper, grown-up eatery, with its clean lines and stylish interiors. The menu is varied, and contains italian salamis, wild venison and salmon. The Chef and the Restaurant Director were both involved in setting up Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen so they know their stuff. They aren’t fanatical about serving only organic food but they do trace the carbon footprint of their suppliers and know from the ground up the source of their products. Both are dead serious about recycling and developing a sustainable model for the restaurant industry. They want to demonstrate that a top commercial restaurant doesn’t have to be wasteful and environmentally damaging. There is a compost and wormery in the back to process raw waste, and they are creating a vegetable and herb garden on the roof. They are working with a non-profit recycling company to develop recycling processes for glass, plastic, raw and cooked food. Eventually they hope to take away and recycle waste from other restaurants as well.
They are community based: committed to teaching the restaurant business to ten young people and training them how to run a kitchen that is environmentally aware. These apprentices can then become “eco-warrier” chefs and spread the word when they get work in other places. And the food? They want it to be “seasonal, sustainable and simple”. It is locally sourced, but not all organic. The menu featured winter vegetables: onion squash, curly kale, swiss chard and Jerusalem artichokes. Diners can order their dishes in any size to minimise wastage. Celeriac soup was hot and tasty, and the Italian pancetta added a bite to the parsnips. The pumpkin ravioli was delicate, the steak from Yorkshire delicious. The table next to us had a wooden platter of Italian salamis and cheese that looked delicious. Some organic wines and some Italian wines were listed. Acorn House serves its own water, purified on site or Belu. We wish them all the best: from such little acorns, mighty oaks are said to grow. :: Acorn House
