Local restaurants spearhead One Planet Plate campaign to offer climate-kind food

Restaurants including Hawksmoor, Albert’s Schloss, Rudy’s, Dishoom and Stockport’s Where the Light Gets In have joined a campaign to help diners use the power of their appetites wisely by highlighting dishes on their menus that provide a tasty solution to the problems in our food system.

Food waste and livestock farming account for more than 20% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

One Planet Plate, a global campaign run by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), enables diners to vote with their fork for a better food future by dining at participating local restaurants and choosing their sustainable specials.

Faced with a full menu of dishes to choose from, it can be hard to feel confident you’re making the right choice, even in the most ethical restaurant. A One Planet Plate is effectively the chef’s sustainable special – his or her responsible recommendation.  

The special One Planet Plate dishes can feature more veg and better meat, waste no food, or have a lower carbon footprint.

Other local restaurants involved include Gorilla, Canto, Trof, Nibble NQ, Real Junk Food and Friska.

The sustainable dishes include potted beef with Yorkshires at Hawksmoor, beetroot fudge brownies at Nibble NQ, and roasted aubergine and vegan pesto pizza at Rudy’s.

At Northern Quarter’s Trof, vegetables are the star of their dish, a beet and pumpkin Wellington.

And it’s not just the city’s independent restaurants taking part. Carluccio’s, Zizzi, Wahaca and Jamie’s Italian are some of the high street brands also serving their own versions of a One Planet Plate.

Diners can find restaurants serving a One Planet Plate on a map, which also serves as a treasure trove of dozens of recipes for the dishes created and contributed by chefs from high end to high street.  

Sam Buckley at Where the Light Gets In has created ‘Eggs from Chinley and Tenderstem for dipping’. The eggs come from the family farm of one of the kitchen team and are fed on the broccoli scraps.

Really adventurous home cooks can go the extra mile with this recipe, using the surplus egg whites to develop photos of the farmers, the hens and the farm, whipping them with salt and coating the paper with them.

The proteins in the egg white create a glossy layer and bind the photographic chemicals to the paper.

“Our single biggest impact on the environment is caused by the food we eat,” said Andrew Stephen, chief executive of the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

“That means there’s the potential for a very tasty solution. All our research tells us that consumers are crying out for some simple signposting to help them make menu choices that are good in every way.

“One Planet Plate gives chefs the chance to draw attention to one damned delicious dish that epitomises their ethos, and choosing it is a vote for the food future we want to see.

“It’s brilliant to see so many North West restaurants leading as well as feeding.” 

FIND OUT MORE