In the high-end dining scene, sustainability is now more than a buzzword: it’s a layer of design and operations built into the fabric of a new dining venue, with budding restaurateurs and top chefs alike keen to limit waste and make the most of what’s local and seasonal to them. In fact, the world’s cutting-edge hospitality moguls know that making a restaurant greener can be huge fun, finding innovative ways to channel sustainable power sources, or out-of-the-box ways to use food waste in everything from biofuel to sauces and cordials.
Sustainable fine dining is one of the most progressive categories of all, with luxury consumers eager to spend on lavish dinners they can feel good about.
Fyn, Cape Town
Photo credit: @fynrestaurantcpt on Instagram
South African pioneer Fyn won this year’s Flor de Caña Award for sustainability in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. With a name inspired by the country’s national fynbos flower (pronounced “Fayn”), Peter Tempelhoff’s restaurant employs hyper-local ingredients and uses Japanese techniques to make delicate creations; the team pays close attention to foraged local wonders like kelp, sea lettuce and dune spinach, as well as partnering with the country’s most ethical producers and fishermen for meat and fish.
More than half of the menu is vegetarian or vegan-friendly, and staff are trained in foraging and careful water management to avoid waste. There’s a social enterprise element, too: they work with a Cape Town initiative to train up young chefs from disadvantaged backgrounds.
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nôl, Tokyo
Photo credit: @nol.jp on Instagram
This moodily-lit, chef’s table style restaurant was awarded the Michelin Green Star this year, taking Tokyo’s Green Star restaurants to 11 ‒ the most sustainable fine dining restaurants in a single city. Chef Tatsuya Noda refers to the dining room as a “kitchen space”, creating dishes passed down through his family, such as his grandmother’s home pickles and his mother’s roasted rice, for just a small group of diners.
Noda’s “Garbage Soup” was singled out by Michelin as an exceptional waste-preventing dish; another low-waste initiative includes creating dishes from sturgeon fish, which are usually discarded after their caviar is removed.
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Apricity, London
Photo credit: @apricityrestaurant on Instagram
Vegans will feel right at home at this soothing, light-filled space in London’s Mayfair, with veg-stacked dishes like butterhead lettuce with cultured miso aioli and crispy kale and celeriac orzotto with confit chestnut gracing the a la carte menu.
Awarded a Michelin Green Star in 2023, Chantelle Nicholson and team have also won Innovator of the Year at the National Restaurant Awards and a Grosvenor Sustainability Award for its circular economy values. Pared-back, distressed walls are pepped up with hanging plants and trendily upcycled furniture and fixtures: recycled tiles and chairs made from old Coca-Cola bottles, saving them from going to landfill.
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Toyo Eatery, Philippines
Winner of the Flor de Caña sustainability award 2023 in the 50 Best Restaurants in Asia, this Manila restaurant does everything it can to champion Filipino people and their produce. Shockingly for a Filipino eatery, there’s no beef on the menu ‒ owners Jordy and May Navarra deemed cattle farming methods too harmful to the environment, and, though they serve other meats, there’s an entirely vegan tasting menu option.
Every ingredient here is local, organic and traceable ‒ think black rice, coconut, banana and taro ‒ making sure local workers benefit from the supply chain; and the team has bought forest and farmland with an aim to become zero-waste by 2025, growing their own produce using any food waste as compost.
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Aponiente, Cadiz, Spain
Seafood lovers should sail, paddle or swim to this waterside spot in southwestern Spain, where chef Ángel León is on a mission to showcase the marine ingredients we don’t typically see on a Michelin-level plate. Abundantly available fish like mackerel and hake crop up on his menus, but also sea urchin, tuna milt, deep sea algae and sardine scales ‒ plus inventive moments like “sea bacon” made from thinly sliced sea bass. It’s an approach that’s earned him three Michelin stars and the 2022 Flor de Caña award for sustainable fine dining. Set inside an old tidal mill with a newer, wow-factor building attached, this is a real sensory experience.
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Locavore, Bali
Photo credit: @locavorenxt on Instagram
Simple, polished wooden tables, a charcoal-grey bar and a high, barn-like ceiling set the scene for Locavore, a champion of Indonesian produce and cooking. Set in the island’s spiritual old capital, Ubud, it was named both Asia’s Most Sustainable Restaurant and Indonesia’s best restaurant overall in 2019. It’s a showcase for all things Balinese: 95% of ingredients are sourced within the island, from coffee to beef and salt, while crockery and ceramics are all made locally by artisans. They have a vegetarian and non-vegetarian tasting menu, with quirky and intriguing dish names like “Who says lobsters don’t like chocolate?” Dishes might include prawn ceviche with plenty of garden herbs and spices, or roasted bone marrow in a pandan broth.
Saint Peter, Sydney
Photo credit: @saintpeterpaddo on Instagram
Another fish fanatic, Josh Niland, is the brains behind this Sydney destination restaurant; his brand of sustainable fine dining is using available and plentiful fish (working carefully with local fishermen) and the shelf life of each fish to serve them at the perfect time, minimizing waste. Like Spain’s Ángel León, Niland makes use of the offal or less-loved parts of the fish, from crispy skin crackers to fish-liver pates, with bones used to make stock and “fish-eye chips” just one signature snack. The trendy, modern restaurant has exposed brick walls and a long marble counter, with plenty of exciting Australian wines on the menu.
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Amber, Hong Kong
Photo credit @rekkebus on Instagram
Michelin green-starred since 2022, as well coming out on top in 2022’s Food Made Good sustainability awards, Amber is a Hong Kong institution. You’ll find it in the city’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, a striking white-and-pine dining room with fluid-looking gold light fixtures and dainty ceramics. All seafood here is sourced sustainably, with fair-trade policies on tea, coffee, chocolate and vanilla; meanwhile only ethical egg and meat producers are used, and no dairy products are featured on the menu, to eliminate any carbon emitted by dairy production. There’s also a strict 35:65 ratio of animal products to plant-based products when it comes to ingredients.
Tèrra, Copenhagen
Photo credit: @_terrarestaurant_ on Instagram
Named for mother earth, this high-end Italian in Denmark’s capital was awarded a Michelin green star in 2021. A zero-waste kitchen, its menu is largely based on seasonal vegetables and fruit, topped up with seasonal and ethically-sourced meat and fish here and there. Dishes might include “Celeriac and mussels”, with the root vegetable forming an oyster-like shell, creative bite-sized snacks made from offcuts, kombucha or cookies made from coffee grounds, and foraged flavors like sea kale and violets. A pared-back dining room of stone walls and simple seating puts the focus on the dishes, served New-Nordic style, like little works of art.
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Restaurante Manu, Curitiba, Brazil
Photo credit: @manubuffara on Instagram
This exciting destination venue in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná won the most sustainable restaurant award at Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants awards earlier this year. An impressive 80% of its suppliers come from within a 300km radius, while the chefs actively connect with family farming businesses and smallholdings to support the local community. They’re obsessed with biodiversity, nurturing local species and even keeping their own beehives; curious combinations might include seared fish with bacon and caramel, or lamb with seafood and custard apple. Even more feelgood? The team feeds the homeless, distributing 400 healthy meals per week to unhoused residents in Curitiba.
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Harbor House Inn, California
Perched on the wild California coastline of Mendocino, Harbor House is a beacon of sustainable American cooking. Chef Matthew Kammerer was awarded a Michelin green star in 2020, while the restaurant holds a rarefied two stars from the foodie guide; 90% of his ingredients come from local sources, including their own cattle ranch and kitchen garden. Porcini mushrooms are foraged from nearby woodland and lichen from the clifftops, and the building itself is 100% powered by sustainable energy, including solar and geothermal. Little details make it charming: fryer oil is turned into candles for the tables, for example. Even more soul-soothing is the wild sea view from the classic wood-paneled dining room.
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