Aquarium’s sea-stainable eating
BTHE NEW YORK Aquarium’s newly opened Oceanside Grill wants to change the way diners do dinner.
The Coney Island café offers sustainably sourced seafood and has totally eliminated single-use plastics — offering reusable and compostable utensils and other dining equipment.
“It’s an opportunity for the aquarium to have a restaurant out on the boardwalk, but also get our message out (about) responsibility and sustainability,” said Wildlife Conservation Society Vice President and New York Aquarium Director Jon Forrest Dohlin.
He said it’s a matter of being considerate of Mother Earth and the creatures of the deep blue sea.
“It’s not too difficult to do, you just have to be thoughtful about it. The fact is, there are alternatives out there,” he said.
“Many of us don’t even need a straw. You can simply sip your drink straight from the cup.”
Using alternatives like paper, metal and glass keeps plastic out of the trash — and, more importantly, out of the ocean.
Just a stone’s throw from the Coney Island Boardwalk, Oceanside Grill — which is open on weekends and will begin serving all week starting on Memorial Day weekend — offers a wide range of delicacies, like fresh fish tacos, fish and chips, and crab rolls.
And they’re all sustainably sourced, meaning the seafood is farmed or caught in ways that takes into account the environment and other social and ethical considerations.
“We work with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in terms of sourcing the food and finding the right distributors,” Dohlin said.
“That seems to be the key thing to me — how (to) make change fairly simple for folks.”