Sustainability Down South
As the terms ‘zero-waste’, ‘seasonal’, and ‘hunter-gatherer’ evolve from restaurant buzzwords to bona fide battle plans, we sit and chat with some of London’s most forward-thinking and sustainably-minded restaurants
interviews by Will HALBERT
Nicholas Balfe & Mark Gurney
Salon and Levan
Tell us a little about the history behind Salon and it’s rise from
pop-up to fully-fledged restaurant.
Nicholas: The rise of Salon has been a very gradual and organic process. I opened Salon as a pop up above a deli in Brixton Market at the end of 2012. I funded it entirely with my own money – and trust me, I didn’t have very much to spare – and cobbled together some very basic kitchen equipment and some raggedy old furniture. In all honesty, I barely expected the pop up to last a few months, but the first weeks were a success, so we decided to carry on. I reinvested almost every penny over the first few years, and with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, Salon gradually shifted from a temporary set up to a permanent venture.
Mark and Matt joined the business in 2016 and we carried out a modest refurb in 2017, before opening the Wine Store next door in November of that year, and celebrating our 5th birthday in January 2018. By that time, we had built up a pretty solid reputation in the industry, had an incredibly loyal group of regulars and the business was in good shape. It was around that time the opportunity to open a second site landed on our lap; we went on to open Levan in Peckham in November 2018.
The term ‘sustainability’ has become something of a catch-all phrase of late. What does the term mean to you, personally?
Nicholas: For me, sustainability means acting responsibly – from the ingredients we source to how we reduce and repurpose our waste. Restaurants have historically had a reputation for being wasteful, but I believe that I have responsibilities as both a chef and restaurateur to be conscious of our impact on the environment, the producers and suppliers we work with, as well as the community we operate within.
How important is the concept of seasonality at Salon and Levan, and what are the biggest challenges that go along with building a menu with seasonality in mind?
Nicholas: Seasonality is an integral part of what we do at both restaurants. I can see no logic whatsoever in trying to source ingredients that aren’t in season, everything not only tastes better but also costs less when it’s in season. Moreover, using ingredients that are in season locally means that they don’t have to travel as far, meaning the products are fresher and the environmental impact is reduced.
Mark, tell us a little about your Wine Store and the wines on offer there.
Mark: The wine ethos across Salon, the Wine Store and Levan is the same; banging wines, made beautifully with as much consideration to the environment as possible. We work with a large variety of winemakers who are incredibly small, and who believe in the importance of eco-diversity and practice organics, biodynamics and don’t use chemicals and minimise their use of sulphur. The fantastic thing about our selections is that you’ll find extremely high quality fine wines alongside the more affordable range all with this same ethos. It’s a hugely exciting time.
What made you decide to take the biodynamic route with your wine selection?
Mark: Alongside reducing the impact we have on the environment and the human (no one needs any more chemical additives in their lives!), we firmly believe that this approach produces wines that are unique, alive, full of character and a reflection of their place.
Are most of your guests already sustainably-minded? Or is there an element of education involved with dining at Salon and Levan?Nicholas: We’re lucky enough to have very open-minded guests at both Salon and Levan. I do enjoy being able to introduce our guests to new ingredients and/or combinations, but we’re not here to challenge people. The term Zero Waste has become a bit of a buzz phrase recently, but the reality is that minimising our waste – whether that be turning meat offcuts into ragu, using surplus fruits to make shrubs, infusions and vinegars, or turning the crusts of our sourdough bread into crackers – means that our menu is more distinct, we get more value from our ingredients and we put so much less into landfill!
Ivan Tisdall-Downes
Head Chef at Native
Tell us a little about the story of Native and the hunter-gatherer ethos behind it.
We created a restaurant that we wanted to eat in first and foremost. I am not a trained chef and so have not hadrestaurant norms built into me. I created the restaurant as a customer, not a restaurateur. I did a degree in Business at Brighton before embarking on my culinary adventure, so effectively learnt how to run a business before I could cook, the opposite to most Chef owners. I gave myself a crash course in cooking, learning from TV, books and working in various establishments around the UK, the most influential of which was River Cottage HQ in Devon, which nurtured my passion for wild and foraged ingredients. This was strengthened by an amazing time spent working at Blue Hill Farm at Stone Barns, in New York. Following this, my family left London and I was increasingly exposed to wild foods. I would spend the summer in the fields walking the dogs and began picking the wild berries and googling what could be done with them, which was mainly making jams and chutneys. It kicked off my entrepreneurial spirit and I began selling jams at farmers’ markets alongside my business partner Imogen. This progressed into selling street food, then onto pop-up restaurants and then we fell into a permanent site.
What does sustainability mean to you? And how predominantly does it factor into what you guys do at Native?
Sustainability has always been at the core of what we do at Native. Giving ingredients the stage they deserve, and utilising the best the land has to offer means that we let the land dictate the menu. It means we have to be more creative and flexible with how we work but I think it also benefits us in the way that our menu is so exciting and changeable.
Do you think that consumers are more sustainably-minded nowadays? Do you think restaurants have a responsibility to educate their guests when it comes to the subject of sustainability?
We are an educational and experience-led restaurant. I believe that food is one of the last true forms of exploration. We have everything at the click of a button now, clothes, music, film, but to taste truly good, regional food you still have to actively go out and seek it.
I think Native has been of interest to people because of the exciting ingredients we use, but also because there is a distinct lack of British food in Britain. We have adopted food from other cultures extremely well (but that’s a whole different subject!) but England specifically has lost its food identity. I think Rene at Noma has helped us rediscover what English food is. We have seen him using different seaweeds, different wild herbs, various wild meat and said ‘hang on a second, we have chickweed, we have kelp and wood pigeon, all over our island, we can cook with that too!”
We are very keen to open a small restaurant with rooms in the countryside on a small farm or smallholding. We would like to grow vegetables and rear a few animals as well as make our own honey out there which we can supply to ‘City Native’, helping us to control our supply chain further.
What are the main challenges of working towards a zero-waste restaurant?
We feel that everything is a product in its own right, there is no such thing as an off-cut. We have a snacks selection on the menu which uses up the more unusual cuts or pieces of the animal, such as the hearts and livers, or larger pieces like the deer shoulders which are trickier to portion for main courses or starters.
We also run our “Wasting Menu” this is an express lunch menu based around hearty stews and curries that uses up the tougher cuts of the animal or products that suppliers often have a surplus of that goes to waste. For us, it’s not only about making our site zero waste, it’s about making the whole food chain generate as little waste as possible, from the produce we order to the packaging it’s delivered in.
For Native, being zero waste was a necessity commercially: keeping costs to a minimum as a start-up was very important. Now it’s definitely something to be proud of.
Where do you do most of your foraging? And can you talk us through on some of the ingredients you’d typically look out for whilst foraging?
That is a secret, I’m afraid! But I can guarantee that when you walk to your local park, or on the way to work you will pass plenty of edible herbs, from elderflower to yarrow and plenty of hedgerow berries!
