A Closer Look: Beijing's Best Restaurants with a Conscience

A Closer Look reviews the winners from our 12th Annual Reader Restaurant Awards, which were announced March 16. Here we take a look at the winners of the Best Green Restaurant category.

Environmentalists and foodies alike were disappointed to hear about the cancellation of tonight's Earth Day Festival. But despite the setback, the organizers of the event, Gung Ho! Gourmet Pizza Factory, are still seen as innovators when it comes to eco-friendly business operations, helping it secure an Outstanding nod in the Best Green Restaurant category of this year's Reader Restaurant Awards. Gung Ho! shared this honor with three other Beijing eateries this year, and we take a look at what makes each of these establishments green.

Best: Tribe
This freshly sprouted entry to the Beijing healthy eats scene has grown deep roots since its debut this past summer. Yvonne Yu, the organic eatery's executive director, says part of that success can be attributed to Tribe's endeavors to stay green, which include: "providing the finest, healthiest organic food (the majority of which is locally sourced); starting a weekly in-house organic farmer's market; providing clean, filtered air; and even using eco-friendly take-away packaging. Being green informs our entire mode of operations and I think our customers recognize this."

Yu says the biggest challenge was in sourcing the ingredients and materials needed for a robust menu. Each of those items had to be selected one by one and tested for quality, while Yu personally visited the farms where the produce was grown. The hard work paid off, helping them secure several reliable partners. Aside from those more ambitious goals, Yu says it is important for eateries with green aspirations to also remember the basics. "The first thing we do is make our green food taste good. Beyond that, we are trying to make a positive impact on the community so it's a safer, happier place to live in."

Outstanding: Gung Ho! Gourmet Pizza Factory
Rich Akers, marketing guru for this beloved pizzeria, says he and his colleagues were naturally disappointed to have the permits pulled for their scheduled Earth Day festival, but this is not the first nor will it be the last green initiative for Gung Ho!. Gung Ho! published an environmental impact report last year, a first for them and a first among their Chinese peers in their business category. The restaurant also uses and reuses numerous sustainable materials, like brick made from mining waste, and recycled packaging.

But Rich says such initiatives can fall flat without the proper outreach. "I think the biggest danger with going green is that the customer will be cynical and assume it's all just a PR stunt. But we've actually been really passionate about this for a long time."

He adds that successfully helping  colleagues, customers, or the community in general go green is straightforward enough, although far too often ignored: "The key is maintaining it, rewarding their support."

Read more about Gung Ho!'s Green initiatives on their website here.

Outstanding: MOKA Bro's
This esteemed Sanlitun eatery also has an unfussy approach to ecologically friendliness. Anna Lin Yip, Group Marketing Manager at Mosto Restaurant Group which owns MOKA Bro's explains: "We’d like to believe that our straight-forward approach of minimizing the steps from production to consumption, reducing salt and sugar, replacing traditional products with superfoods where we can, and having a good variety of dishes on the menu, meet all those requirements."

She adds that customers' appetite for such healthy fare is not only due to nutrition, but also health and safety. She goes on to say that: "With the many food scandals in China, people just want to know what they are putting in their bodies. You should be able to look, taste and feel your food, and know exactly what you’re exposing your body to. And eating should be a guilt-free and fun pleasure. Is that too much to ask for?"

Outstanding: The Rug
This uber chic restaurant specializes in creatively and exotically healthy dishes. Co-owner Elin Hung says the key to connecting with customers longing for green fare was to use organic ingredients from day one, when she opened The Rug's first location near Chaoyang Park in 2011. "The Rug is probably one of the first restaurants to work with organic partners in Beijing, from bread to eggs to milk to coffee to vegetables," she said.

Transparency is also a key in those efforts, Hung said. "We list out our biggest partners in our menu and introduce them to our eaters. Also we make every dish from scratch, every jam, every sauce."

And while those initiatives help The Rug's dishes stay green, Hung said that she and her colleagues aren't afraid to think bigger, beyond what's on their plates. "We also promote local partners, rather than using imported products, so as to reduce our carbon footprint."

Hungry for more? Follow all of our 2015 Reader Restaurant Awards coverage here.

Image: Tribe Organic