Il Buco for Earth Week

There is much talk about thinking global and acting local. On this site I’ve featured many organizations active on a global scale. But what of small businesses, you may ask, putting tangible systems in place to enable change? There is a lot of that going on as well. So naturally when I dined at Il Buco last Friday night, I thought of you.

It was partly because the food—a bison carpaccio with cumin-coated fried chickpeas, followed by a radicchio risotto and coupled with a crisp glass of sangiovese—was fresh and original and devoid of unnecessary complexity.

And a little because everyone, from our French waitress, to the sommelier, busboys and later the manager, made us feel at home and were eager to complement our desire for new flavours with their experience and knowledge.

And, finally, because the 16-year old restaurant has put in place a slew of simple but effective measures to make its existence less burdensome on the Earth. These measures seemed reasonably easy to implement in any business with a desire to act on its convictions and yet, in a city like New York where sometimes even basic recycling seems like too much to ask, I was impressed.

Here are a few of the features the manager, John Cassanos, shared with me.

Recycling
Obvious but necessary: all paper, glass and plastic is recycled.

Locally sourced, non-processed foods
They source their products primarily from sustainable agriculture;
They buy the whole pig and use the whole pig, as an example;

Composting
Food waste is composted;

Reducing
“Back of the house” illuminated with energy-efficient bulbs;
Paper used in the restaurant contains recycled or pcw fibers;

Giving back
The restaurant hosts an annual Earth Day fundraiser benefiting the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This year it runs from Monday 19 April 19 through Saturday 24 April. As an added incentive for attendance (as though the aforementioned qualities weren’t enough), the restaurant will reduce its customers’ bills by 15% to 20%—depending on the meal time—and donate the equivalent dollar amount to IUCN.

So, let’s recap: the restaurant offers an amazing food & wine experience, it is focussed on being environmentally- and socially-conscious and has been thriving for the past 16 years in a city where restaurants open and close as often as one changes their shirt. What was it someone was saying about sustainability being inconvenient/impractical/expensive/incompatible with profit?

But, of course, don’t take my word for it. Food critic David Rosengarten wrote, “Lately, after a string of spectacular evenings at il Buco, I’ve been uttering the restaurant’s name in reponse to the question ‘What restaurant should I go to on my one night in New York?’. To my taste, il Buco is that good, and that special….”

If even that doesn’t convince you, next time you’re in New York, go see for yourself.