Eco-eatery is London hot-spot

 Here’s my arti­cle from The Toronto Star, Feb­ru­ary 23, 2008, that I wrote about Acorn House after a recent visit to the U.K.

“Acorn House is the most impor­tant restau­rant to open in Lon­don in 200 years,” Giles Coren, The Times mag­a­zine (Decem­ber, 2006).

 LONDON – I’m out of breath, hav­ing scram­bled up a steep metal stair­case behind fleet-footed, 6-foot-6 chef Arthur Potts Daw­son to check out the com­post­ing sys­tem and rooftop gar­den of Acorn House located a stone’s throw from King’s Cross station.

I’m on my annual U.K. pil­grim­age to visit my mum who lives not far from here in the more fash­ion­able but less grit­tily inter­est­ing neigh­bour­hood of Prim­rose Hill.

She’s sip­ping cof­fee in the long, nar­row 60-plus-seat din­ing room. Its ambi­ence is warm and wel­com­ing, the decor com­fort­able urban chic. We’ve just had a lus­cious lunch of assorted sal­ads and antipasti selected from a menu that’s big on vegetables.

It’s my sec­ond meal here. A few days ear­lier, a friend and I savoured din­ner. While she devoured slightly chewy but flavour­ful Roast Par­tridge Wrapped in Pancetta with Chest­nut Cav­alo Nero (the lat­ter is some­times called black kale), I rel­ished a superb dish: juicily ten­der Pan-Fried Line-Caught Sea Bass Fil­let with Quince Aoili.

An afi­cionado of the Eccles Cake, I shared one with my com­pan­ion for dessert. Sur­rounded by cus­tard driz­zle, its deeply deli­cious dried fruit fill­ing was encased in crisp puff pas­try – a fine spec­i­men of this tra­di­tional British confection.

That meal with two cock­tails and one glass of wine cost $200 with gra­tu­ity. Lunch with mum (no alco­holic drinks) was ter­rific value: $70 before tip.

In keep­ing with the Acorn House credo, almost every­thing we ate was organic and sourced locally in sea­son. There’s even British wine. A few items like pro­sciutto are imported. Water is puri­fied on site. Var­i­ous por­tion sizes can be ordered to reduce leftovers.

But food’s not the only domain in which green reigns supreme. There’s a pol­icy of no air-freight. The eatery uses a bio-diesel van and pro­vides large recy­clable plas­tic con­tain­ers to suppliers.

To con­serve energy, the place is designed so it’s an aver­age of 18 feet/5½ metres from the kitchen’s deliv­ery door to the din­ing table. There’s no walk-in fridge. Food, deliv­ered daily, is mostly stored in pantries. Pack­ag­ing is not allowed into the build­ing. No chem­i­cals or bleach are used.

Up on the roof, I’m scrib­bling fran­ti­cally on both sides of the page – waste not, want not is also a credo of mine — as the fast-talking Potts Daw­son waxes elo­quent about his con­sum­ing pas­sion: compost.

He opens the lid of a large metal com­pos­tor and runs his hands through the black/brown mix­ture inside. It resem­bles cof­fee grounds and has vir­tu­ally no smell.

The device, made in Korea, is state-of-the-art. “It mac­er­ates, dehy­drates and dessi­cates,” he says in rapid pat­ter, adding that this machine made by GOC Tech­nolo­gies cost $40,000 and is “the only one in the West­ern world.” Amaz­ingly, it reduces “the 100 kilos of raw waste gen­er­ated in a day to 10 kilos.”

Potts Daw­son has twinkly green eyes that match the T-shirt he’s wear­ing bear­ing the restaurant’s name. He says he’s “a Lon­don boy with coun­try roots” who’s been think­ing and act­ing green for 20 years. “I have a per­sonal love for sea­son­al­ity, young peo­ple and chil­dren,” he says, adding, “I want to lower our impact on the environment.”

Com­post­ing, then recy­cling the rich results to fer­til­ize the large amount of pro­duce he grows on this roof is a no-brainer to him. “Not wast­ing energy and sus­tain­abil­ity are the two biggest issues for urban life,” he notes and who can argue with that?

Acorn House has been cheek­ily called “greener-than-thou” by Jay Rayner in the Observer — but don’t get the wrong idea. This is a busy, professionally-run restau­rant with well-trained staff and a small but inno­v­a­tive menu yield­ing excel­lent food. Best of all, eat­ing here is as  inspir­ing as it is fun.

Potts Daw­son and gen­eral man­ager Jamie Grainger-Smith, both in their mid-30s, have worked at top Lon­don restau­rants includ­ing Jamie Oliver’s Fif­teen.

Their year-old eco-eatery, named New­comer of the Year for 2007 by the Observer Food Monthly mag­a­zine, oper­ates under the umbrella of the Shored­itch Trust: a char­ity devoted to regen­er­at­ing inner London.

They’re com­mit­ted to train­ing 10 “eco-restaurateurs” a year and work with the local com­mu­nity prepar­ing healthy meals for children.

I fol­low Potts Daw­son as he bounds down the metal stair­case and quickly becomes embroiled in a dis­cus­sion with his chefs. Then he turns to me. “We believe in waste man­age­ment and eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples,” he enthuses. “It’s also about food and ser­vice. We serve good, hon­est food that I trust based on how I eat – sus­tain­able pro­duce I’d feed to my own chil­dren.”
He sums things up: “The staff real­ize they’re part of a food rev­o­lu­tion. We’re in an urban set­ting deliv­er­ing a sus­tain­able restaurant.”

Mum and I are handed our coats by the friendly young maitre d’. On our way out, I grab what I think is a pack­age of Acorn House matches. That night, I open it up to light a can­dle and guess what? Inside are card­board com­post sticks com­plete with instruc­tions on how to use.

Beet Soup

Adapted from an Acorn House recipe, this a ver­sion of the East­ern Euro­pean borscht – com­plete with vodka. For shorter cook­ing time, chop peeled beets in food processor.

1 tbsp veg­etable oil

1 tbsp butter

5 cel­ery stalks, chopped

1 medium red onion, chopped

2 cloves gar­lic, peeled

1 tsp ground car­damom, optional

2 kg/4 lb beets, peeled, sliced

1 cup vodka

¹⁄₃ cup red wine vinegar

6 cups veg­etable stock

250-mL con­tainer sour cream

Kosher salt and ground pep­per to taste

Gar­nish: Sour cream and chopped fresh dill or parsley

In large saucepan, heat oil and but­ter over medium-low heat. Add cel­ery, onion and gar­lic; cook about 7 min­utes or until golden. Add car­damom; cook about 2 min­utes more. Add beets, ¾ cup of vodka and ¼ cup of vine­gar. Bring to boil over high heat until most liq­uid evap­o­rates and veg­eta­bles begin to stick to saucepan. Add stock; bring to boil. Reduce heat to low; cook, par­tially cov­ered, about 1½ hours or until beets are soft. Cool.

In batches, puree beet mix­ture in blender, adding some sour cream along with reserved vodka and vine­gar to each batch until used up. Add salt and pepper.

To serve, re-heat and add a spoon­ful of sour cream topped with dill to each bowl.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.