Relais & Châteaux Honors World Oceans Day On June 8 And Beyond

Every June 8, stewards of the marine environment and other biodiversity activist organizations celebrate World Oceans Day. Taking as a cue this year’s theme of Planet Ocean: Tides are Changing, the Relais & Châteaux member association illustrates proactive approaches the luxury travel industry can take in instructing chefs and diners on the need to stop sourcing, serving and consuming vital and vulnerable ocean species.

Given that a full 20% of the 580 Relais & Châteaux restaurants and hotels spread over 65 countries lie next to bodies of fresh or saline water, how apropos that throughout the month of June hundreds of the group’s chefs will be showcasing menus based on sustainable seafood—and with the intention of maintaining sustainable-friendly culinary practices.

In addition to being the main source of protein for more than a billion people, the oceans are the economic lifeblood of tens of million people. Some 35% of marine life is overfished, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). While 20% of fish caught globally is done illegally, 35% of the catch is also released to often fatal results.

“We must act,” says Mauro Colagreco in a Relais & Châteaux press release. “Chefs have a critical role to play: We can stop the demand,” adds the chef-owner of southern France’s acclaimed Restaurant Mirazur and the association’s Vice President of Chefs.

Shrimp farming and other aquaculture industries have led to the devastation of vital biodiverse mangrove zones. Climate change in addition to intensive fishing has caused various wild salmon species to become rare, while stocks of some tuna species are overexploited, as well. Even following an end to its fishing, the vital cod population off of Newfoundland has yet to recover three decades after its collapse.

And then there are eels, various species of which have already collapsed as well. For the last fifteen years, Relais & Châteaux has worked with the French NGO Ethic Ocean for the preservation of marine resources. Late last year, the group announced that it had joined Ethic Ocean’s #eelnothankyou campaign “to save this species that is disappearing before our eyes.”

With its members operating 800 restaurants and holding 370 Michelin Stars and 34 Green Stars, Relais & Châteaux follows a three-tiered scale of red, yellow, or green assignments for species sustainability. As such, the association aims to remove all red-listed species from their menus, starting with eel.

As his recently-redesigned restaurant enters its 19th year on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, James Beard Award-winning chef-owner Michael Cimarusti of the two-Michelin-starred Providence seafood restaurant shows what a Relais & Châteaux restaurant can do in advocating for healthy seafood populations. Based on sustainable seafood sourced primarily from California’s Pacific waters, Chef Cimarusti’s eight-course tasting menu reflects the group’s current educational initiative that they call SOS (Save Ocean Species) for Biodiversity that addresses the importance of seasonality. Hear the chef discuss the issue in the video below:

That commitment to sustainability and their operation’s zero-waste efforts, as well as an onsite rooftop garden, have helped earned Providence a new Michelin Green Star. The regenerative garden is both a bat sanctuary and home to 160,000 bees that over the last year produced 100 pounds of honey used throughout the dining and cocktail menus, with a floral flavor less sweet than most honeys. Every petite leaf and flower grown is used on the menu. Last year, the National Wildlife Federation also granted the garden status as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.

Cimarusti follows traceability tools prepared by the Seafood Watch NGO which was founded 25 years ago out of the inspiration of an exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (itself located in the famed Cannery Row at the heart of a once exploitative fishing industry). Seafood Watch’s detailed methods for sourcing sustainable fish, crustaceans, mollusks and seaweed can be searched by species and region. For his part, David Toutain of the Relais & Châteaux restaurant in Paris under his name has replaced his iconic eel dish with smoked herring.

Further video perspectives from Relais & Châteaux member chefs can be seen on the group’s Seasonality page prepared for World Oceans Day: Elena Arzak, who along with her father Chef Juan Mari, is the eponymous chef of San Sebastián’s acclaimed Basque restaurant Arzak; Scott Bacon of Baltimore’s The Ivy; and Hannes Bareiss of Bareiss in the Black Forest. There’s also a Q&A on ethical approaches with Chef Christophe Dufossé of the North Sea-adjacent Château de Beaulieu in France, which holds two Michelin Stars and a Green Star.

In related news, Relais & Châteaux recently published a second edition of its Travel Book, co-edited by Lars Seifert, the group’s Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer. The release of the handsome 220 pages of sumptuous fine photography and profiles of both new members and selected hoteliers and chefs coincides with the group’s 70th anniversary. In addition to design and craftsmanship stories, suggested road trips, and winter and desert adventures, you’ll, of course, find plenty of themes on sustainability.