I am delighted to announce that Poco Broadway Market has won three awards including overall Restaurant of the Year at the Food Made Good Awards 2016. Poco Broadway Market was also awarded winner of the English Food Made Good Champion and the Independent Restaurant of the Year. The awards were presented on 22nd March by the SRA’s President, Raymond Blanc OBE, at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Hall in London.
The Food Made Good Awards, run by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), celebrate British restauranteurs, chefs and suppliers doing the extraordinary to ‘make food good’ – delicious, ethical and sustainable. This year Poco was shortlisted for no less than four Food Made Good Awards for their Bristol and Broadway Market locations.
Ben Pryor, Jen Best and I launched the first Poco in Bristol in 2011. The restaurant quickly became known for its quality seasonal menu and sustainable approach to food, winning the SRA award for the Environment in 2013. Last September we launched our second venture on London’s bustling Broadway Market. As with the original location the menu at Poco Broadway Market focuses on organic and seasonal British produce.
Winning this award is like winning three Michelin stars for us! Sustainability is the heart of all Poco’s values, we are therefore ecstatic to receive recognition for something we believe is so important. Since we opened our first Poco five years ago the environmental consciousness of restaurants has increased dramatically. We are so proud to still be amongst the best and most sustainable restaurants in the UK on the SRA’s wall of fame.
Our main priority at Poco is to have a positive impact on the local and global community through providing delicious ethically sourced food. By taking great care over sourcing our ingredients – buying from artisans and organic community farms – we inherently create a very high quality and sustainable cuisine in our cafes and restaurants.
With a strong moral compass and no short cuts attitude it is easy to create a profitable restaurant with a positive environmental impact. In today’s environmentally conscious marketplace there are endless solutions to create a successful and sustainable restaurant. And there is certainly a huge demand from our customers to know their food is ethically sourced.
Through having this approach to business, sustainable practice becomes simple and a motivation for running a successful business.
Poco also provided the canapes for guests at this year’s Food Made Good Awards. The canapes included:
Wholemeal fritti Alexanders, aioli, charcoal salt, lemon
Cauliflower leaf kimchi, white sesame, Korean chilli, E5 wholemeal
Sour milk spelt scone, smoked labneh, swede and apple chutney, nigella seeds