For New York’s Inaugural ‘Make Food, Not Waste’ Restaurant Week, 12 Eateries Vow to Reduce Waste—And Share Their Tips

As New York City gears up to instate mandatory curbside composting, some of the boroughs’ celebrated restaurants are preparing for the first-ever “Make Food, Not Waste” Restaurant Week. Beginning Oct. 6th, all residents in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, will be required by law to compost, separating all food scraps and soiled-paper from other trash. Compost will be picked up curbside by the Department of Sanitation on the same day as recycling.

The inaugural “Make Food, Not Waste” event is centered around chefs’ commitment to composting and cooking waste-free for one week, and kicks off today, Mon., Sept. 30. The 12 restaurants, many of which have earned impressive accolades, were challenged to create an innovative new dish that encapsulates the zero-waste principle of this restaurant week. 

“We're always thinking of creative ways to repurpose ingredients that typically get discarded. For instance, with the sushi rice we make fresh every day, any leftover rice can’t be used for Temaki the next day due to texture changes. But instead of wasting it, we blend the rice and fry it to create crispy, delicious rice chips. Turning it into a completely new and exciting dish is a perfect way to give that leftover rice a second life,” said chef Jihan Lee of Nami Nori, the sleek, airy Japanese restaurant with locations in the West Village and Williamsburg.

Other chefs prioritize repurposing not only in inventive dishes, but also with helpful tips that are simple for New Yorkers to do in their own kitchens—many of which will become increasingly helpful as residents are required to separate all food waste and food-soiled paper products from their trash and recycling. Lee advises home cooks to meal plan as a basic way to reduce over-purchasing and make the most of each ingredient. Jeremiah Stone of Bar Contra, the hip Lower East Side cocktail bar, is a big fan of saving cheese rinds.

“There’s a ton of flavor and they can be steeped into a soup with vegetables for more umami and flavor. One example would be to make a vegetable stock with the end-cuttings of vegetables and a Parmigiano Reggiano rind. Cook that for 40 minutes, and you have a lot more interesting flavor development,” Stone told Observer.

James Beard Award-winning chef Dan Kluger advises one-pot meals as an easy way to control how many ingredients are used and to have a plan for leftovers, if there are any. Fidel Caballero of Corima, a new North Mexican fine dining eatery in Chinatown, always saves vegetable trimmings and meat bones to make broths and stocks. He also loves pickling vegetables that are beginning to turn, rather than chucking them.

“Composting will help keep organic waste out of the garbage and landfills. Instead, it gets turned into compost that improves soil health and supports local gardens,” Kluger, who supports New York City’s curbside compost mandate, told Observer. “It’s a practical step to hopefully keeping rats out of the trash, and towards a cleaner city and a more sustainable environment.”

The weeklong celebration of reduced carbon footprints is presented by Mill, a food recycling system that breaks down food waste overnight into dry, clean grounds that can be used as part of a composting process. Each participating restaurant has received a Mill food recycler to further their waste-free commitment; the brand will also donate $10,000 to the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which organizes community-based sustainability initiatives and helps New Yorkers with electronic waste and composting.

For all the New Yorkers looking to reduce composting by dining out (it’s certainly one way reduce food waste, as long as you lick your plate clean), here is the full list of restaurants and bars participating in “Make Food, Not Waste” Restaurant Week and the exciting zero-waste dishes that they’ll debut in honor of the event: