Printable Version

Is sustainability sustainable?

by Jennifer Miller

I was intrigued by the opportunity to meet Arthur Potts Dawson. On the one hand the critics have raved about his two ventures - Acorn House and Water House Restaurant - both owned by the charitable regeneration agency the Shoreditch Trust. On the other, in a world where many of us rely on online restaurant reviews, customers have been anything but kind in their assessment. So I was interested to discover the driving factors involved with such a concept and how it might hold up in the current economic downturn.

The philosophy behind Acorn House is simple: to be environmentally sustainable - from the recycled plastic chairs, through to the food on the plate, and, just as importantly the disposal of waste.Yet as we talk I discover that the execution of this ideal is far from simple.

It all started when Micheal Pyner, CEO of the Shoreditch Trust and Andy Munroe, Executive Director of Resources at the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), discussed over lunch the opportunity to build a training restaurant in the ground floor space of the THT building in Kings Cross. The pair approached Potts Dawson about partnering with them to establish the venture.

He said no.“I went back to them and thanked them for the opportunity but explained that I wasn’t interested in a purely training restaurant. I had been at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen for a year and had enjoyed it, but I had ideas about developing an eco friendly concept focussed on sustainability and local, naturally grown produce and I was very keen to pursue it.”

It’s certainly been something of a ‘buzz’word of late,why was he interested in sustainability?

“I had influences from my upbringing and personal spirituality that really led me to this, but I’m also a product of the industry itself,”he explains.“I began my career when I started a summer job at Lords and Kensington Place restaurant at the age of fifteen. I was going back to school but Rowley Leigh, who was there at the time, suggested that Imight like to continue and set up an opportunity for me to do an apprenticeship with the Roux Brothers.This was the beginning of the various influences that gave me the knowledge, skills and drive to create Acorn House.

“With Roux, I really learned about how to operate with a strong economic base.The result is actually low wastage and a fairly sustainable approach - by making sure that you use everything and don’t waste products for profitability, you naturally have an environmental angle.”

Introducing Arthur…

It is perhaps necessary, at this point, to introduce Arthur Potts Dawson a little more thoroughly.

After his apprenticeship and a return to Kensington Place restaurant Potts Dawson spent a number of years in France, New Zealand and Australia working in the Michelin-star realm of the chef world.Then, on his return to the United Kingdom, he broke away from the Michelin mould and joined the River Café as Sous Chef.“It was really exciting,”beams Potts Dawson,“it really broke down some of the ‘ego’ of the kitchen, and it was all about great produce cooked really simply, very different to the Michelin style.”

After three years Potts Dawson left to establish Ronnie Wood’s Harrington Club as Executive Chef, and then headed to Spain to launch the Terra Sana restaurant chain.“This was another strong influence.Terra Sana roughly translates to Healthy Earth; they wanted to do good food with good produce, both by growing their own and using organic and local produce and working on composting waste.They had the space and the name but needed the business so that’s what I was there to build.”

During his time in Spain, Potts Dawson was approached by Soho House to re-launch Cecconi’s so he returned to London.The next move came when he joined Fifteen as executive chef. It was here at Fifteen that the sustainability ideas came together and he and restaurant manager Jamie Grainger-Smith established Bliss Restaurant Consultancy and ultimately teamed up with the Shoreditch Trust and THT in the creation of Acorn House in November 2006.This first project was followed in 2007 by the Water House Restaurant on Regents canal, bringing us to the present day.

I mentioned previously that reviewers and critics have had mixed opinions. But what does Acorn House do? Why is it considered ground breaking and, according to one enamoured critic “The most important restaurant to open in London in the past 200 years”? We have heard numerous concepts and companies talking about organic produce, low food miles and reducing carbon footprints, so what is different here?

“Many places that claim they are sustainable focus only on produce to plate.We go further than that,” explains Potts Dawson.“It goes right from the soil through the whole system and back to the soil - the plate is only halfway through the cycle. When I was young my father moved to the country and had a farm which I used to visit in the holidays.You see the real things - the birth and death of animals, real milk and then cheese, vegetables growing.You realise that it’s not about the glossy photos, it’s about the textures, the nourishment, respect and care.

Urban garden…

“Here in the middle of Kings Cross we have an urban garden.We grow our own produce on the roof garden and compost our own waste using worms. They produce wonderful soil which then goes back into the garden beds and completes the cycle - of course it’s asleep now.”Potts Dawson comments, as if talking about a friend or child.

Clearly not every restaurant is going to go to these lengths, so I’m interested to find out what the ‘quick wins’ are, what can other people do to reduce the impact of their operations?

“None of it is quick or easy!” is Potts Dawson’s first response.“People can reuse, refuse and compost.”Two of these terms are self explanatory, but what does he mean by refuse? “We mean talking to suppliers, sourcing produce that has less (or no) plastic packaging, cardboard and string - refuse it. Produce can also be delivered in a way that reduces impact, low energy transport.We have a commitment not to use air freighted produce, that’s not to say some of our produce is not from abroad, but it comes via rail or sea, not air. People can also separate out their waste.”

So with these suggestions,why is none of it quick or easy?

“Well in most restaurants there isn’t enough space,” he points out, motioning to the kitchen and the produce in baskets and on shelves along the restaurant walls.“But we are determined and we are doing it here in the smallest kitchen in London! And then there is the cost; if the government is serious about sustainability they have to make it easier and cheaper.We have to pay a private company to collect and process the waste that we cannot compost.”

At the Waterhouse restaurant Potts Dawson went a few steps further and the restaurant has a state of the art cooling system driven by the temperature of the canal water, solar panels for energy and the option of ‘paperless’ toilets.You would hope that these initiatives would all pay for themselves over time and add back to the bottom line, but this is not the case according to Potts Dawson.

With the cost of doing business this way and the smattering of negative customer reviews such as:“OK meal, but very overpriced for what was pretty ordinary. A case of hype winning over delivery?” and “I know sustainability is a good cause, but for those prices standards must be kept very, very high.”

I ask Potts Dawson how he marries the laudable aims of the restaurant with customer satisfaction and business success, and what of the future – with a clear end to the boomand tough economic times ahead? “As far as the criticisms go,we try not to get dragged in.There are a lot of people out there both praising and criticising and it’s important to keep both in perspective. For example, when we first opened we didn’t go out to shout about the eco friendly aspect.We were a sustainable, training restaurant and then in a press release the garden and composting and low energy aims were mentioned, and it went from there.We are a team that is about training, good service and good food. We are maturing and the product is maturing.

Reflect and change…

“As for the downturn,we need to watch what happens.As people have less money in their pockets, all businesses have to reflect and make changes. But we will not change the fundamentals.Organic dairy and meat are very important, but other produce can be sourced in different ways and still be sustainable. In the end we still have to keep afloat so it comes down to menu engineering - training and knowledge.”

So the question remains - as a social enterprise owned by the Shoreditch Trust, paying acorn (excuse the pun) rent to THT this works. Out in the big wide world is this form of sustainability sustainable?

Time will tell.

Click here to subscribe to EP Magazine