Chef Kevin Fink is known around Texas for his sustainable initiatives and fantastic food. His endeavors include One MICHELIN Star Hestia, Bib Gourmand Ladino, Ezov, Nicosi, locally focused Pullman Market, and organic Trosi Farms. The chef has an impressive sustainable resume, training at Three MICHELIN Star and Green Star The French Laundry in California and Three MICHELIN Star and Green Star noma in Denmark.
One of his most outstanding projects is Bib Gourmand Green Star Emmer & Rye. The restaurant works through audit systems, making sure to spend 90-95% of its dollars with farms within Texas (including their own Trosi Farms), focusing on ingredients that others won’t take, such as flood-ridden, mixed-breed pigs. In the kitchen, the team implements techniques such as creating aminos of leftover egg whites and burnt bread. In total, the restaurant serves over 100 different dishes each year, continuously changing based on seasonality.
Before diving in, if you want to check out our Inspectors' take, click here.
What is your philosophy on sustainability?
Sustainability is a conversation. We look at it as an ecosystem where we try and get the freshest vegetables out of the ground that travel the least amount of time. We give a high premium to the farmers growing those things so they can have a better life and they can do things the right way.Whenever we create a dish, we ask these three questions: does it highlight our product that is indigenous or unique to our region? Does the dish bring respect to an ingredient that we value more than most, so it can gain accolades in the market (i.e. yaupon, monk's pepper)? Does the dish or technique solve a problem of waste from farmers, ranchers or fishermen?
Tell us about your most impactful initiative.
Our farm, and how we utilize all of our organic matter and refuse and ash to create more compost and fertilizer. Our commitment to prioritizing great quality and sustainable items over cost.Also, we talk with farmers about where their food waste is occurring, and how we can utilize that as a product. For example, we use sweet potato greens and cowpea greens. They’re everywhere, and the farmers need a way to be able to get monetary value for them because they're a byproduct.
Okra grows tremendously big and becomes woody. We'll take the large seeds out of that which are essentially inedible and quite bitter. We'll pressure cook them and then turn them into pickled caviar of sorts. Or we'll then dry and fry them, and they will puff like a seed. We’ll use the remaining okra and dry the edges and then emulsify and thicken sauces with the quality of what happens there. A product that otherwise would be in the bin.
When a freeze is coming, farmers will lose everything. There’s this mad dash to get as much of these things off the field as possible, each with different states of ripeness. The farmers know that they can call us, and we're going to show up for them. For cherry tomatoes, we'll ferment the very small ones, pickle the medium ones, and use the larger ones fresh. We want to make sure that they're there on the other side of the freeze.
What’s the most sustainable dish on the menu?
Smoked Lamb and Pig Head 'Carnitas' with Dirty Farro, Pickled Squash, Herb Yogurt. The dish was created with the intention of utilizing all the less desirable cuts of pork and lamb. The pork head and trotters (from Yonder Way Farm) are confited and whipped into the smoked lamb (Braune Farms) and pork. The pork livers are ground and cooked into a dirty farro, a varietal of local grain from Barton Springs Mill. The dish is garnished with Pickled Trombocino squash from Trosi Farm and house-cultured yogurt using Milking Creamery Dairy.Texas Blackjack Point Oysters, Smoked watermelon & Jimmy Nardello mignonette. As Texans, Gulf oysters were only good in cold months, and even then a bit dicey unless they were part of an oyster bake. But when the Texas legislature passed HB 1300, cultivated oyster mariculture began to develop. Watermen bring oysters up to the surface for cultivation, stabilize supply, cause less damage to wild reefs, protect our coastlines, and use the filtering power of the bivalves to improve water quality.
In the peak of summer, our farm (Trosi Farm) had more melons than we could sell in dishes, so we made a large supply of watermelon molasses. Similarly, we took the abundance of peppers and began a slow smoking/drying program so that we could have chiles year round, which are used in the migonette. This is a zero waste dish that actually gives back to the environment through increasing oyster production in the gulf.
What can other restaurants do to be more environmentally conscious?
Getting a deep respect for why and how. When you spend time out on a farm and you get to ask the questions, practices go a lot further.Have everybody prep their organic waste into a small bucket next to their station to be able to look at what is in there that we really think shouldn't be going into waste.
What’s one thing everyone can do to be more environmentally friendly in their daily lives?
Prioritizing and asking the question about where things came from.And, a huge amount of food waste happens in people's fridges. You get leftovers. Having a technique in your house to be able to have vinegar or have pickles is an incredible vehicle for repurposing what would be food waste. That adds a ton of flavor. If you have a third of your mushrooms left, cook them, marinate them and pickle them, or even put them in a vinegar brine, and then you have this beautiful brine that you can make a vinaigrette from.
What do you view as the future of sustainability in gastronomy?
I'm probably too deep into this. I'm sitting in front of Pullman Market, which is a huge market that we opened around local food and supply. Nutrient degradation happens between when something is picked and how long it is out until you eat. In our restaurants, we're incredibly focused on things having been out of the ground from one to three days before we serve them to you. It forces you to be in a smaller farm model.Water preservation is also huge. At the end of the day, instead of burning ice, we'll let that sit, put it into a bucket, and we'll use that to water all the plants in the restaurant or wash the floors, because water is a huge thing that we need to just be smarter.
Hero image: Robert Lerma / Chef Kevin Fink
Thumb image: Robert Lerma / Chef Kevin Fink
