Salt Yard Group awarded two stars by SRA

Salt Yard restaurant group earns two stars from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) after raising between them more than £50,000 for charity and recently investing in locally reared pigs which means the four-strong group can pride themselves on impeccable pork. All four of the central London restaurants, Salt Yard, Ember Yard, Dehesa and Opera Tavern, adopt a charity every year and have between them raised more than £50,000 for organisations including House of St Barnabas and Shuktara. The SRA’s assessors also praised the group for its work with Switchback, providing work experience and training as well as hiring trainees full time. When it comes to the food, chef director Ben Tish prides himself on the pork all the restaurants in the group serve but he wanted to go a step further and take a little more control. So now Salt Yard has its own Gloucester Old Spot pigs bearing reared by The Rare Breed Meat Company in Essex. They are fed acorns and allowed to live a little longer than most pigs. Staff from the restaurants visit the pigs and when the pigs are slaughtered they are butchered simply into their primals, divided to the four restaurants so that the chefs can use the whole animals and prepare things like sausages from scratch. Ben said: “A big thing for us last year has been buying our pig herd and getting the chefs to butcher and gain a further understanding of how to use everything. It’s a no brainer and we will continue in that vein. I’m really pleased with our Two Star award at all our restaurants. Although we do import products from Spain and Italy due to our style, we work hard to source locally where we can and are pushing forward with this.” As well as serving almost exclusively free-range meat and playing an active role in the community, Salt Yard also demonstrated in its sustainability rating a strong commitment to reducing its impact on the environment. Recycling everything it can, including its food waste, installing smart meters and insisting suppliers take back their packaging, are all evidence of the efforts the group is making. Mark Linehan, Managing Director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, said: “It’s good to see that as Salt Yard grows it isn’t leaving behind the principles on which it was founded. It’s evident that Ben and his team are still focussed on serving their customers quality food with a low environmental price tag. And their work to support the community is undoubtedly up there amongst the very best in the business.”