Kayakas!

We reported here back in May on Bordeaux Quay, a new eco-gastronomic venture in the UK city of Bristol (also home to Cafe Maytreya, a vegetarian”s paradise which we reported on here). Whilst we may have been wrong about Bordeaux Quay being the first carbon-neutral restaurant in the country, we certainly weren’t wrong about the sheer scope of chef Barny Houghton’s environmental ambitions. The project has been very successful in raising the profile of local food – the Times newspaper for example ran an interview with Barny Houghton in which he took the reporter to a muddy field in Somerset to see his supply of pork. The £2.7m project is now up and running and hosts a restaurant, brasserie, bar, deli, bakery and cookery school. Bordeaux Quay is promising to source staple ingredients from organic and sustainable farms within a 50-mile of Bristol, with other ingredients (Bristol isn’t known for its olives!) coming from producers that they know and trust well. As if this were not enough, the retrofit of the old dockside warehouse in which Bordeaux Quay is based was done to strict ecological standards, including salvage and reuse of existing materials and the installation of a rainwater harvesting system that now flushes the toilets. Being dedicated Treehugges, we felt it was our duty to check this place out. Oh, the sacrifices we make for the planet…