For MICHELIN Guide Toronto selection spot Ration: Beverley, sustainability is the main dish on offer. Through fermentation, foraging, and curing, this zero-waste restaurant features inventive dishes that give diners a glimpse of what the future of green gastronomy looks like. Below, executive chef and founder Jef Edwards brings us into his world and how Ration fits in with Toronto's vast culinary landscape.
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“For us, this exploration into the biodiversity of our local environments help develop the connection we yearn to have with our community, history and culture as a Canadian,” explains Edward. The goal of Ration: Beverley was to take the dining experience beyond the four walls of the restaurant highlighting the Canadian landscape. “Through wild foods foraged in Ontario, produce from our partner farm in Uxbridge (Forsythe Family Farms), along with fermentation and preservation techniques, we’re able to share the incredible bounty of Canada’s natural ecosystems.”
Biodiversity is at the heart of the restaurant and why Edwards loves living in Toronto. “There’s so many parks, forests, lakes, and rivers here which make it easy to maintain a connection to nature even while living in a city of this size.” That ease of access coupled with acting as a platform for farmers' markets and education about fermentation, is how Ration: Beverley has built sustainability into Toronto’s ever-growing diverse culinary landscape.
One way is through their menu focused on wild foods and fermentation: “We knew it could be challenging to convince diners to eat plants that they have never heard of,” says Edwards. “To overcome this, we created very familiar flavor profiles so we could bridge this gap.”
Examples include the fish and chips (a desert island must-have for Edwards) and the Caesar salad (where lettuces consist of a mix of wild plants, the dressing is made from oyster garum acidulated with vinegar made from oyster shells with croutons and bacon bits made from smoked spent bread crumb and a house-fermented fish “katsuobushi”.
Another way Edwards leads the path on sustainability is through his fermentation program—essentially, the restaurants that ferment trade excess stock, byproducts, and organic food waste with other restaurants who then use that to create...more ferments. “Hopefully through that, we can engage corporate restaurants to participate to some degree,” advocates Edwards. “If we’re able to influence the corporate food service model to become more conscious of their environmental impact, we can truly begin to change our world.”
And while Edwards should be lauded for his strides thus far, to him, it's just the start. “Ration started with small ideas, but once that door was opened it sparked this almost primal need to become a positive contributor to the hospitality industry,” says Edward. "[As] we, as a society, become more conscious of our environmental impact, we have more power to make the changes." And at Ration: Beverly they're doing it with delicious results.
Hero image: Maria See Yan Lee/Ration: Beverley
