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Leading Chicago Culinary Pros Gathered at Daisies Restaurant on Nov. 9
Daisies, a standout on Chicago’s restaurant scene, hosted an industry panel on sustainability on Saturday (November 9). Located in the Logan Square neighborhood, it could hardly have been a more appropriate location, as Daisies is one of the most sustainability-focused restaurants not only in Chicago, but anywhere.
Michelin, which publishes restaurant-rating guides around the world, last year designated Daisies as a Green Star restaurant for its “strong commitment to sustainable gastronomy," making it one just about 561 Green Star dining spots around the world.
Daisies owner Joe Frillman, in his introductory remarks, and Executive Chef Thomas Leonard during the panel discussion highlighted the restaurant’s approaches to sustainability. These include procuring 95 percent of their ingredients from local farms, including Frillman Farms in Berrien Springs, Michigan, owned by Joe’s brother Tim. Other activities include reducing food waste through upcycling vegetable scraps by pickling/fermentation and repurposing them in their bar program (which includes a mushroom margarita).
The panel discussion, moderated by Eater Chicago Editor Ashok Selvam, also featured local farm-to-table pioneer Paul Virant of Gaijin in Chicago and Petite Vie and Vistro Prime in the suburbs; Kelly Clancy, managing partner at the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group; Greg Wade, head baker and partner at Publican Quality Bread; Mariya Moore, an award-winning Black chef; and Norman Fenton, chef-owner of Chicago’s Cariño, a fine-dining Mexican restaurant.
The conversation focused on restaurant practices to promote sustainability, while also highlighting the challenges owners face in implementing such practices at a time when the culinary industry — hit hard by the COVID pandemic and its ripple effects in inflation and changing consumer priorities — is facing serious economic challenges.
The following takeaways provide a flavor of the very informative conversation.
Ashok Selvam: Where does sustainability land in terms of your priorities?
Norman Fenton: We literally utilize any byproduct from our tasting menu to create new items for our menu, which then creates a new experience for our guests and keeps them coming back multiple times... We really have to think about what we're doing with the products, how much time we're spending on the products, also how much gas, electricity, and all that we're using to create these products.
Mariya Moore: I have just been very intentional about making sure from the choices that I'm making at the beginning, where I'm ordering things from, where all of my products are coming from, making sure that I am using sustainable sources as much as possible... I was composting... I was definitely reusing, recycling, repurposing and just sharing my thoughts and processes with everyone working with me, with my guests, so also becoming a resource in that way.
Greg Wade [Note: Publican Quality Bread is part of the One Off Hospitality Group, which is referenced in these comments]: “The sourcing, of course, is a bedrock of our values. We're using stone milled whole grain flour from Spence Farm [in Fairbury, Illinois], milled at Janie’s Mill [Ashkum, Illinois], buying, I think, 95 percent of what Spence Farm grows... The vehicles purchased for One Off Hospitality at this point are electric and we’re building the solar panels on top of Big Star West Town, things like that... And for the bakeries, we're working on sustainable packaging.
Thomas Leonard: Seasonality is at the core of what we do here at Daisies, but also is what we all should try to take home... What's in season? Everyone loves corn. Corn is amazing, especially here in the Midwest, but it doesn't necessarily need a place on the Thanksgiving table, when it's not in season, you can't get it locally, and its environmental impact is not as low as something like root vegetables.... Also waste is a big thing... If Uncle Jim is the only one that likes sweet potato casserole, do you really need to make an entire sweet potato casserole, or just roast a sweet potato covered with some marshmallows and call it a day... It starts with supporting local farmers, then it leads into composting and getting that compost back to either the farm or just using third parties to compost.
Kelly Clancy: In regards to sustainability and restaurant planning, we've made a major focus on understanding what it looks like from the ground up and building. We've converted most of our lighting systems to LED systems, making sure that our backup spaces have sensors on them as far as lighting goes, and saving any electricity that we can there. Really taking a look at our to-go packaging and making sure that from the get-go our packaging is sustainable... Our construction companies have changed over to electric vehicles. We're working with some great local Chicago carpentry companies that are doing the same thing... [Along with eliminating plastic straws] We've removed plastic tasting spoons from the restaurants. We've removed single use deli cups from the restaurants. We've made a major change in all of our plastic wraps, using Nature's Best plastic wraps. It's a really great resource. We absolutely want to move forward in getting rid of as much of it as we possibly can, and going towards materials that are 100 percent compostable.
Paul Virant: I opened Vie [his first restaurant] I was 34 years old. I'm 54 now, and I was definitely on the mission to really save the world. Source local, cook, seasonally, minimize waste, lean heavy into preservation and all these things. We continue to do a lot of this stuff, as much as we can, but I'm not optimistic... One in every seven individuals in our country is food insecure... I've heard 1/3, I've heard 1/5 of all food that's grown is wasted... All the food waste that goes into trash is such a major pollutant, it has such an impact on the greenhouse gases... We’ve all talked about a lot of different things, about utilizing stuff, it's great and I agree with all that, but it all takes time. It takes money. We have staff that we have to manage. Is the consumer ready for food to cost what it should cost, reflected on the menus of our restaurants? I don't think so.
Mariya Moore: To your point, it's super grim a lot of the time, but I think it's important for us to remember that this is one decision at a time. A lot of people made choices for us and put us in this place. I think it's important to continue to educate ourselves in all of these very important ways and different ways of doing and being than we've been taught in our very recent past. It's not gonna change tomorrow. But I think when we start to educate ourselves and really understand what it takes, it just is one decision at a time, one day at a time, is what's going to get us there.
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There was so much thought-provoking content in the conversation, which went on for almost an hour and a half. In order to not tax your patience, I am going to break out some of this content for a pair of subsequent stories:
Moderator Ashok Selvam asked the panelists to expand upon how people can prepare for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with sustainability in mind. Look for an article coming soon so you can consider the ideas in your own planning.
Greg Wade made powerful comments about how we individually can advance the cause of building a better food system by getting involved in grass-roots efforts to affect positive change. This was music to my ears, as I gave up my first career as a national political journalist more than 13 years ago to write about people, who I call everyday heroes, who are working to repair the social fabric from the bottom up. A think-piece about this is coming soon.
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