2023’s Eat Out Woolworths Sustainability award winner, The LivingRoom at Summerhill Guest Estate in KwaZulu-Natal, is changing the way that a restaurant can source food and ingredients, manage waste, conserve resources, and take care of employees – but these are just some of the most basic things that chef Johannes Richter breathes into the heartbeat of the restaurant and its people. The LivingRoom is a case study on how to do things right, and how to do it well.  

The importance of sustainability in today’s culinary landscape
The impugning message of sustainability can often be parroted as a “buzzword” or as a topic of “trend”, but the morals and methods of The LivingRoom speak to truer and clearer core values in its ethos, approach and execution – a dedication and devotion on full display to that which delivers on primary culinary principles.  

 “It is now a fundamental part of how any restaurant worth its salt operates. If we just look at the mass and rapid consumption of our natural resources, it’s clear that sustainability is something we all absolutely have a responsibility to consider now or will have to grapple with at some point in the not-too-distant future,” says Johannes.  

 Composing a menu
“I don’t think we’ve ever created a menu with a goal to reflect sustainability, but rather our sustainable efforts. The menu always features plenty of locally grown, indigenous and endemic ingredients, which speak to the current season, while our ferments and preserves speak to those of the past,” Johannes says. At its intention, The LivingRoom is a place where meticulous detail is bred in a solidarity of philosophy and culture – one that speaks of honesty, integrity, transparency, sincerity and generosity in their approach to everything that they do and to all that do it. 

 

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A post shared by The LivingRoom at Summerhill Guest Estate (@thelivingroomatsummerhill)

The challenges
Johannes is very aware of the challenges and hurdles that one might encounter at times. He explains: “The biggest challenge is that it’s not something that you can just ‘greenwash’ – if you really want to be a sustainable business, it is something that you need to live by, and that really needs to be a mantra for your life and your business.”

There is sometimes the assumption that choosing this path would be a compromise on one’s quality in offering and execution. Johannes and The LivingRoom have clearly proven their excellence by simultaneously winning multiple awards, including the Eat Out Woolworths Sustainability Award and earning stars in the 2023 Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards. They were also named Restaurant of the Year in 2022. 

 Johannes shares his key principles
In sharing some advice and recommendations for some easy sustainable practices in a restaurant environment, Johannes aims to empower other restaurants and chefs to take inspiration, and an assurance that it doesn’t have to be as challenging as one might assume, if guided by these four key pillars: 

1. Source
“We prioritise sourcing from local, small-scale producers who share our commitment to ethical and sustainable practices, focusing on endemic, seasonal, and pesticide-free ingredients – all within a 100km radius of us. This even includes our crockery, which is made by a KwaZulu-Natal-based ceramicist using local clay.” 

2. Usage
“Our minimal-waste kitchen emphasises recycling, reusing, and composting, ensuring that as little as possible goes to waste. We also use a host of preservation and fermentation techniques to ensure that what isn’t used during one season can be used in another. We utilise secondary cuts of protein, cooking nose-to-tail and repurposing by-product. We avoid unnecessary packaging and abstain from sous-vide cooking (which utilises single-use plastic), which is something easy to implement.” 

3. Energy and water
“The restaurant is off the grid. Our energy is sustainably harvested from the sun through solar panels on the property [which obviously can come at quite a significant cost, but if that option is off the table, then…] regulate your energy source and be efficient with your energy use. Wastewater left over from cooking processes, and leftover ice buckets from the restaurant, water our gardens.” 

 4. People
“We recognise the importance of our team, of sustaining the people component of our business. We aim to ensure their well-being through fair wages, a healthy work environment, and sufficient rest.” 

 

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A post shared by The LivingRoom at Summerhill Guest Estate (@thelivingroomatsummerhill)

 Johannes truly does walk his talk, and he does so at a cadence of admirable stride with purposeful intention. It is very encouraging to know that for any restaurant deciding to look sincerely into its operations with some very basic shifts in processes, it is not an obstacle that requires overcoming – but rather is a system that can be implemented to work cohesively as a sum of other parts in the business operation. Sustainability is not a process reserved for only a special few that can – it is something adaptable to fit within any environment and operation.  

 In a time where so many want to say something profound, instead be encouraged to do something more profound that by positive consequence of taking such action results in ensuring a lasting impact. 

 Michael Cooke is former Executive chef of Camphors at Vergelegen – a previous two-time winner of the Eat Out Woolworths Sustainability Award.