Environmentally friendly restaurants have become one of the hottest trends in the industry, with restaurants using recycled materials, on-site vegetable gardens and other green features. Since you can always count on us making sure you have the resources you need to live a healthier and greener life, here are our favorite sustainable restaurants in NYC and LA!
NYC Favorite:
- ABC Kitchen: A New York City favorite and also one of the greenest restaurants in the city. Everything about it is eco-friendly – the forks are made of potatoes, waiters wear biodegradable sneakers, and the menu is locally sourced.
- Rosemary’s: A popular Italian gem of a restaurant in the West Village, Manhattan, Rosemary’s has a rooftop garden where they plant all the ingredients used for the menu. It’s amazing that they manage to source much of their food from their roof, as the restaurant is large.
- The Butcher’s Daughter: Although this place is no “secret gem,” it is still one of our favorite restaurants in NYC. The food is fresh and all vegetarian. Great spot for a healthy brunch or dinner.
- Hu Kitchen: A cafeteria-style lunch spot that caters to paleo, vegan, and generally healthy eaters. All the produce is local and consciously sourced. You can even grab organic wine at the casual bar!
LA Favorite:
- Wolf: Talk about “Eat all your veggies”! Chef Marcel Vigneron zeros in on a zero-waste cooking, utilizing “every possible edible part of the product from seed to stalk”, such as his favored Charred Carrots dish — he uses the entire vegetable, including the skins and carrot tops, and pairs it with Romanesco, avocado, hazelnut, broccoli, and furikake.
- Plant Food + Wine: We’ve heard amazing things about this restaurant. On top of only working with plant-based cuisine they source locally, they support growers and have relationships with their farmers. The restaurant was recently awarded the Sustainable Restaurant Award by the Sustainable Business Council of LA, being recognized for their eco-friendly measures which include, environmentally friendly chemicals for kitchen and cleaning, using compostable and recyclable carryout containers, bio-dynamic, organic, sustainable practices for wines, energy-efficient dishwasher, and appliances among many others.
- SunCafe: Known for serving delicious and fresh cooked and raw vegan food, they are also known for being a sustainable restaurant. They do everything they can to be as eco-friendly as possible, from using reclaimed wood and bricks to build their patio to buying ingredients from companies that only use sustainable practices to decrease their impact on the environment.