It's Not Easy Being Green

Slowly but surely, some pioneering UK restaurants are waking-up to working sustainably and ethically. Here are six inspirational venues which are hopefully defining the future

- Tony Naylor

RESTAURANT SAT BAINS, NOTTINGHAM

You may imagine that Michelin-starred restaurants, our most cerebral hospitality environments, are pace-setters in sustainability. In fact, the holistic changes which Sat Bains has introduced at his restaurant-with-rooms remain rare. 

Sat made headlines in 2015 when he reduced his staff’s working hours to four days-a-week, while continuing to pay them the same salary. In an industry fighting over a small pool of talented chefs, Sat wanted to make this two-Michelin starred property a more attractive place to work. But it was also about rewarding his team. “We took a massive [financial] risk for their future,” says Sat, who talks about demonstrating, by example, how restaurants can treat staff in a fair, nurturing way: “It’s an obligation we have as restaurateurs.”

In recent years, Sat has overseen several other innovations that are, similarly, virtuous circles: moves which have made his restaurant leaner, greener and tastier. This journey started when the University of Nottingham asked Sat to help them create a solar-powered house. He showed the team how to cook his famous 62C duck egg, pea and ham dish in a low-temperature oven and, subsequently, a Ph.D student visited to analyse where Sat’s kitchen was wasting energy: “Our electricity bill was going through the roof, £40k- £50k-a-year, just ridiculous. It was a really good learning curve.”