This year we have worked hard to make our restaurant more sustainable, from the ingredients we use, to our cooking processes and how our food is served.
We use seasonal produce in our Rooftop Restaurant, mostly from Warwickshire and the Pershore area. As well as supporting local suppliers this means we’re not using additional fuel to move produce around the country or fly it in from overseas.
Recent research has shed light on the impact that eating meat has upon the environment by fuelling climate change and polluting landscapes and waterways, so we offer a good range of vegetarian and vegan options in the restaurant on all our menus, including afternoon teas.
And we also serve farmed or MSC-labelled fish which means the fish you eat in our restaurant is sustainable and won't contribute to declines in ocean fish stocks.
Paper and plastic
To cut down on the amount of paper we use, we’ve replaced paper napkins with reusable linen ones in most cases. When our printed menus are no longer in use we use them as scrap paper for notes, before recycling them.
And instead of a Christmas cracker decorated with non-recyclable trimmings and plastic toys that will end up in landfill, this year's Christmas party guests will get a cracker made of recycled card with one of a selection of 3D cardboard Christmas tree decorations inside.
Changes in the kitchen and cocktail bar
Here are just some of the things we're doing to reuse, recycle, and improve energy efficiency in the Rooftop kitchen and at the bar:
- Reducing the plastic milk bottles we use by decanting the 32,000 pints of milk we get through every year from a dispenser into reusable glass bottles
- Converting all food waste into energy or nutrient-rich fertiliser for local gardening and agriculture
- Recycling waste oil from the kitchen for bio-fuels
- Replacing plastic straws with paper straws
- Improving energy efficiency by switching to modern induction-heat equipment in the kitchen
- Making our own fruit garnishes to cut down on waste, buying lime and lemon juice in large 5L bottles to decant into smaller reusable bottles and using teabags made from corn starch and free from glue and plastic that are fully compostable
