Point out a restaurant that claims to be totally sustainable, the chef James Lowe once observed, and he’ll point out a restaurant that “are either lying, or they don't understand the depth of the subject”.
From transportation and packaging to energy and cleaning, restaurants — particularly urban restaurants — run almost directly counter to the environmentalist edict of “leave no trace”. Besides, that’s not why we go to them. We go to socialise, to celebrate, to eat and drink the things we cannot (or cannot be bothered to) make ourselves. We go to be entertained. Thetrouble is that the world can no longer sustain the sole pursuit of hedonism without any thought to the consequences.
