Restaurants take steps in green direction
Mention green restaurants and most people will probably think of vegan cuisine or salad bars.
In fact, a green establishment may indeed serve healthful food and an array of fine produce, but to qualify for green certification, a restaurant must recycle waste, be styrofoam-free, complete four environmental steps, and commit to four additional steps each year, says Michael Oshman, founder and director of the nonprofit Green Restaurant Association. "The key is completing additional steps each year," he says, "which could include energy or water conservation measures, elimination of toxic cleaners, sustainable food choices, using clean power, and others." More than 300 restaurants nationally have been certified -- bakeries, pizzerias, and luxurious dining rooms. In Boston there are eight establishments involved in the program.
What might seem surprising about the Boston restaurants participating is that almost all are upscale. Their menus are laden with as much locally grown food as possible, and their chefs promote sustainable cuisine. Becoming certified as green is the next step in furthering their commitment to good environmental practices.
Lumiere in West Newton is among the restaurants going green, as is Oleana in Cambridge, The Fireplace in Brookline, Cafe Fleuri at Hotel Langham, the State Room at the BU Club, Bayside Restaurant in Westport, and Upstairs on the Square in Cambridge.
The certification may seem like a marketing tool for attracting socially conscious diners, but Lumiere chef and owner Michael Leviton says, "Some people get it and really appreciate it, and others will ask, 'Why don't you have any green vegetables [in winter]?' "
Leviton strives to serve locally grown food year-round, which means asparagus isn't on his winter menu. As of late December he was trying to serve vegetables from local farms. "I'm down to one shipment a week from Verrill Farm in Concord," he said at the time. "And it's just root vegetables ."
Meat and fish are also chosen carefully. Leviton spends hours on the phone with farmers and purveyors. "Nearly all of our meat is local, and all of our fish are local, sustainably caught," he says. "I can tell you which boat my fish came off of, and how it was caught."
Lumiere's menu, however, might offer hooked cod, which is not sustainably harvested according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program, which produces a consumer guide to sustainable seafood. "Atlantic cod are on our red list because they have been severely over-fished and are at a very low population count. We'd like to give them a break," says Sheila Bowman, Seafood Watch outreach manager. "But hook and line is the best way to go if you really have to have cod fish."
Pressed about the cod, Leviton says, "If we do not support the hook and line people who are doing it right, all we will have are giant boats decimating the oceans."
The staff, too, finds recycling challenging. Waste is sorted into a variety of bins, and it takes getting used to.
Oleana chef and owner Ana Sortun agrees that it's a tough adjustment. "Honestly, we really don't care about the certification," says Sortun. "It's our philosophy. We wanted to compost because of our farm, and because half our waste is food. We didn't want chemicals in our food." Sortun and her husband, Chris Kurth, own Siena Farms, which is organic. The Sudbury farm provides Oleana with all of the restaurant's summer produce. In winter, Sortun buys from California and Florida.
She found GRA when she was looking for green cleaners that would satisfy the Cambridge health department. "And one thing led to another," she says. She is now retrofitting all of Oleana's lighting with energy-efficient LED (light emitting diodes). Color Kinetics is installing the lighting without charge. "Some think you can't achieve the same mood with LED so they are using us as a model to show that it's just as good," she says.
While neither Sortun nor Leviton advertise their green certification, Jim Solomon, owner of The Fireplace, announces it on menus and on the restaurant's website. "Some of my regular customers have commented that they eat in the restaurant more frequently now that they know it's environmentally friendly," says Solomon.
While recycling has benefits, and buying locally means food doesn't travel cross- country, the top issue in restaurants is energy in the kitchen. "If restaurants were automobiles, they would be Hummers," says Richard Young, an electrical engineer with the Food Service Technology Center. "They use five times more energy per square foot than any other commercial building."
None of the Boston-area restaurants have addressed the energy efficiency of their kitchens, says Oshman of the GRA, though many are changing their lights.
"Lighting is about 15 percent of a restaurant's energy use," says Young. "The big - ticket items are broilers, steamers, and pasta cookers. Some of these appliances have energy-efficient options, but others do not."
Oshman says, "We're in for long-term change and we feel that restaurateurs are more likely to make these kinds of changes over the long-term. We start with recycling because it's doable. "
Young agrees. "You want to make it easy enough that people will go for it, but not so expensive it will put them out of business."
At Lumiere, owner Leviton installed energy-efficient fluorescent lighting in the basement, but not the dining room -- because of aesthetics. He also switched to non-chlorinated, recycled paper towels.
Toilet paper in the restrooms is another matter. "I won't do that to my customers," says the Newton restaurateur.
"They like the soft stuff." 