- Loam gets sustainable rating
- Fourth restaurant in Ireland to get award from SRA
- Food waste sent back to Loughrea farm
Enda McEvoy and Christine Walsh in the kitchen at Loam. Photo: Joe O’Shaughnessy.
Galway’s Loam restaurant, run by Michelin-starred chef Enda McEvoy was awarded a Three Star Food Made Good rating by the Sustainable Restaurant Association following a review of their practices, one of four in Ireland after Ashford Castle, KSG in UCC and Harvey Nicholls First floor restaurant in Dublin.
Loam say their menu is purposely kept small and changes regularly in order to reduce food waste with Enda also preserving ingredients through pickling and fermentation to ensure their availability out of season. The team at Loam use every part of the animals and fish that they work with, making stocks from bones, rillettes and pates with trimmings and use as much of each plant, root, stem, leaf and flower as they can to highlight each ingredient and show its full potential. To complete the loop, the restaurant sends suitable food waste back to Leaf and Root Farm (their fruit & vegetable supplier) in Loughrea to be composted, helping boost the growth of future crops.
Loam is also involved in a number of community initiatives, including running cookery demos for school children at a local school in conjunction with Slow Food Ireland.
Enda McEvoy, head chef and owner of Loam said: “from the outset, we have strived to have a low impact, sustainable business. This shows us that we are on the right track and serves as motivation to try achieve more in terms of sustainability. We work with excellent producers who make it possible to source amazing local produce and we feel very lucky in this regard.”
Sustainable Restaurant Association judges said: Loam places impressive emphasis on the provenance of produce, sourcing meat, vegetables, eggs and even locally made crockery. Loam support local beekeepers, an excellent way of helping to maintain biodiversity, forage for ingredients, grow their own herbs and flowers and use local, seasonal game. They support numerous local charities and take part in a weekly waste clean-up. Their work towards achieving a closed loop waste system is an admirable and ambitious project which we hope will inspire many other Irish restaurants and businesses.
Andrew Stephen, Chief Executive of the SRA, said: “It is as crystal clear as the waters of Galway Bay, that Enda and his team at Loam are doing everything in their powers not only to serve the finest, best sourced local ingredients, but also to build a place at the very heart of the community in Galway City. They have set an exceptional standard for others in Ireland to follow.”
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