Malaysian eateries leading the sustainability effort
THERE is a growing trend of local restaurants making efforts to grow produce in their own gardens or sourcing locally-made produce to minimise their import costs and carbon footprint. Here are four local restaurants leading that charge.
Babe
This popular fine-dining eatery helmed by Jeff Ramsey has its own rooftop garden, where Ramsey grows edible flowers and local herbs like daun selom, daun kaduk, lavender sorrel, kailan and ketumpang air. The idea behind the rooftop garden was to utilise the unused space and grow fresh and pesticide-free produce. Interestingly, Ramsey and his chefs are the ones who tend to all the herbs in the garden!
Nadodi
This KL restaurant boasts nearly 90% locally-sourced produce, including tomatoes, cucumbers and tamarillos specially grown for the eatery in an organic farm in Cameron Highlands. It also gets coriander leaves, chillies and curry leaves from another local farm and sources wild-caught local fish like kurau, snapper, mullet and coral trout. Head chef Johnson Ebenezer is also making headway in trying to utilise all parts of each vegetable and animal.
The Andaman Langkawi
After the 2004 tsunami, 80% of the coral reef in front of the hotel was destroyed, and fishermen were affected as fish supply had depleted. As a result, the hotel lowered 52 artificial reef modules to shelter the fish and help them reproduce. The hotel’s restaurant Jala buys fish directly from fishermen; each fish must weigh more than 500g to ensure it has had a chance to reproduce. Jala also has its own herb garden.
The Datai Langkawi
Since its renovation, the hotel has emerged with a new permaculture garden in a bid to start a menu derived from purely organic produce. While the project is still in its infancy, it has started growing organic vegetables like pumpkin, sweet corn and cherry tomatoes as well as local herbs like ulam raja and daun pegaga.