][1]I was fortunate enough to spend last weekend at the Belle Isle School of Cookery in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
It was for a travel piece in The Scotsman which should appear on the 3rd or 10th of April. The cookery school is part of the wider Belle Isle estate which comprises leased farming and a range of accommodation choices. We stayed in the cosy but spacious courtyard cottages and, if you are feeling flush, there is also the option to rent out the quirky castle.
Belle Isle is a beautiful, tranquil spot on Lough Earne and the cookery school was fun for a whole host of reasons but what really struck me was how eco-friendly they were trying to be. From compost bins in the kitchens to the bottle recycling facilities via the wood pellet burning heater which keeps the chill out of the castle, they are doing as much as they can to make their business environmentally friendly.
According to the factor who looks after the place, they have done this for a number of reasons. The first is that it was the responsible thing to do; the second was that it saved them money and the third, perhaps most surprising point, was that they did it to attract more guests. The factor had read that 40% of Germans would not take a holiday in a place that didn’t meet certain environmental standards and he figured that it wouldn’t take long before Brits started thinking the same way. He wanted his business to be ahead of the curve.
The Sustainable Restaurant Association is currently having a good natured spat with The Observer’s Jay Rayner about what constitutes an environmentally sound restaurant. Edinburgh’s Pickled Green, a recent 5pm member, has thought a lot about the issue and it’s sustainable policy is set out here.
I’m interested. Would a restaurant’s environmental policy, or lack thereof, influence where you eat? Or would it just be an added bonus if you already liked the food? Would you ever decide to bodyswerve a restaurant because it didn’t have an active environmental policy?