one planet plate launches in Brighton

With the climate crisis as it is, we’re pretty happy that today marks the launch of One Planet Plate, a campaign aimed to help diners choose more climate-kind food. Spearheaded by fifteen Brighton restaurants, they will each be highlighting dishes on their menus that provide a tasty solution to the problems in our food system. We like the sound of this.

The Salt Room, Happy Maki and Purezza are just three of the fifteen Brighton restaurants that are taking part in the global campaign run by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA). Each restaurant is adding a ‘sustainable special’ to their menu from today, Wednesday 11th September, giving diners the chance to vote with their food favourites for a better food future.

So, what are the requirements of a sustainable special, we hear you cry? Well, Lucky Beach Café has developed a couple of dishes including its plant-based b12 Moving Mountains slider and beetroot and blood orange bruschetta. Delicious and kind to the planet! The dishes ‘feature more veg’ and ‘have a lower carbon footprint’, which are two of the criteria for a One Planet Plate, just in case you wondered. Better meat, celebrating local, sourcing fish sustainably and wasting no food are the other criteria, which we’d say our Brighton & Hove food scene is doing pretty well at already.

We know that food waste and livestock farming account for about a quarter of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, so if you get the chance to support the campaign by trying a One Planet Plate, you’ll be giving a hospitality high five to the restaurants that are attempting to take a bit out of their environmental impact. If you don’t get a chance to try a sustainable special, then just by swapping one red meat-based meal to a plant-based one every week, you could help cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Feeling peckish? For the sushi lover, you can head to Happy Maki to try their Thai sweet potato freshly rolled vegan futomaki sushi roll, while students and staff at the University of Sussex can enjoy a daily On the Pulse dish. Chef Mark Kipling has chosen one of the most popular of these for his One Planet Plate: Roasted chickpea chana masala with a cumin-spiced sweet potato, roasted peppers with brown rice. YUM.

one-planet-plate

If a fish finger sanger is your go-to pub grub then plan a day trip to Hastings where you can stop off at The Crown for a sustainable sandwich (pictured above), made with locally caught whiting, batter made with Three Legs Pale Ale batter and flour from Newhaven’s Bread for Life and parsley from Peapod. If it’s a sweet treat you’re after then Metrodeco in Kemptown is where to head, as their vegan pistachio and cranberry tiffin is one of the sweeter additions to their plant-based afternoon tea.

The Salt Room have switched things up by adding their Local Apple Daiquiri to the menu. A brilliantly refreshing aperitif that uses every part of the fruit as well as lime husks. Waste not, want not!

Other restaurants offering sustainable specials include Lucky Beach Cafe, Curry Leaf Cafe, Moshimo, Market, Cleveland Arms, Purezza (featured image), Leon, Carluccios, Zizzi and Wahaca. Head to www.oneplanetplate.org. to find out more.