Captain's Galley, Scrabster Wins Sustainable Restaurant Of The Year Award

28th February 2015

Captains Galley, Scrabster and Cotswold Cafe were recipients of the Sustainable Restaurant of the year awards 2015.

Two very different restaurants, 700 miles apart, but who share the same outstanding commitment to sustainability, have been named joint winners of the Sustainable Restaurant of the Year award in London on 23rd February 2015).

Daylesford, which operates three organic cafes in the Cotswolds and Kensington, and The Captain's Galley, Britain's most northerly mainland restaurant that strictly serves seafood in season, received their awards from Raymond Blanc, President of the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

The winning restaurants demonstrate perfectly the democratisation of sustainable dining, offering diners the chance to eat well wherever they live and whatever their budget.

Jim Cowie worked as a fish trader for more than 30 years and had never so much as boiled an egg before opening his harbour-side restaurant in Scrabster, Caithness. He refuses to serve popular seafood items in his 18-seat restaurant, unless they are in season and in plentiful supply. This autumn, he is organising a sustainable seafood festival to help people better understand which fish to eat and enjoy.

Both restaurants launched in same year, 2002, with a mission to serve high quality food from ingredients produced with principles on their doorstep. Daylesford’s 2,000-acre organic farm provides the majority of the ingredients for its three cafes, in Kingham in Gloucestershire, Notting Hill and Pimlico, while the ocean outside the Captain’s Galley doors in Scrabster, serves as its larder.

Daylesford’s 2,000-acres organic farm provides the majority of the ingredients for its three cafes, in Kingham in Gloucestershire, Notting Hill and Pimlico. It shares the same passion for increasing public awareness about sustainability and has established its own foundation to educate children and young people in sustainable food, growing and farming.

Meanwhile, Star Bistro has been named The People’s Favourite, topping a poll of five restaurants shortlisted from more than 850 nominations. The Cheltenham restaurant offers customers a fine dining experience with immaculately soured ingredients, and people with physical and learning disabilities the chance to gain hugely valuable work experience both front of house and in the kitchen. It won the lion’s share of the public’s 10,000 votes.

Rob Rees, who founded Star Bistro, said: "This is an incredible endorsement of what we are doing at Star Bistro. Sometimes, with the challenges we have with our supply chain and with the people we are employing, we are on our knees and have to remember why we are doing this. This recognition is a huge motivator. And it’s fantastic to know we’re not alone - all of the restaurants on the shortlist are doing amazing things and it encourages me that this really is becoming the norm."

Tom Kerridge, who worked as sous chef under Rob Rees at The Country Elephant for two years in the 1990s, said: "I’m so pleased for Rob and the team from Star Bistro, what a fantastic achievement all round, I know how much hard work and dedication these guys put in the make the business such a success. I wish them all the best for the future and may this be a start of a stream of recognition."

At the Sustainable Restaurant Awards gala lunch at Oval Space in East London, Raymond Blanc said: “These awards are for me as important as Michelin Stars. They represent what everybody who is passionate about food should regard as the perfect ingredients: good ethics, an understanding that food touches every part of our lives and a desire to ensure that future generations will be able to experience from it the same pleasure as we have.”

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was this year’s recipient of the Raymond Blanc Sustainability Hero award for standing out as ‘the person who shows the greatest connection to seasonality, sustainability and traceability.’