Keep Austin Fresh

How Chefs are Embracing Sustainable Practices

By: Sahana Selvaraj

Vegetables drip with water as they are seasoned with love and spices. Fresh from the farm, diners serve delicious and natural food to local and familiar customers. Native Austinites enjoy spending their weekends buying fresh produce with their families. Locally sourced food has become more popular since it's fresh, more nutritious, has less packaging, and is better for the environment. Purchasing local food can be beneficial to farmers in the Austin area – which can boost the regional economy, a good thing for everyone in the region.

Chef Shawn Circkiel is the owner of five different restaurants (Parkside, Backspace, 800 Congress, 7c0, and Olive & June), all of which highlight a different aspect of Austin’s culture with a fusion of international flavors, from casual juice shops to elevated European cuisine.

For Cirkiel, eating locally has been a part of his identity and principles for his entire life. All of his restaurants follow the same base values: their food is either locally sourced or imported from small businesses. The restaurants feature seasonal menus, and are built around the community.

“I believe strongly in the fact that, culturally we should support those around us, whether it's our friends, our coworkers, our family, our neighborhood, or our community. I think it starts with how we spend our money, how we donate, how we give. And I think that those small decisions build a much better community,” Cirkiel expresses.

Being locally sourced is perceived differently by everyone, but for Cirkiel, it means keeping their money as local as possible, which can mean choosing a local distributor over a broad market distributor. It has more layers to it than just sourcing food locally, it also includes important (but often overlooked) items in a restaurant, such as paper goods and cleaning supplies.

It is difficult, expensive, and sometimes time-consuming to source locally, especially for fast moving and ever changing restaurants. For Cirkiel, his primary challenge was using fresh ingredients and knowing where they came from. He finds food that he knows is good for his customers, checking each one for quality, and sourcing only from the best farms. This way, he can ensure that all the food is healthy and real. neighborhoods,” says Gillcrist. She believes that having a restaurant with a casual environment and friendly atmosphere really shows what Austin’s culture is all about.

The weather is the biggest determining factor in his seasonal menu. He tends to add citrus and other bright, fresh flavors during the summer months. In the winter, Cirkiel incorporates rich creams and steaming soups into his menu. He is very particular about the location of his restaurants as well, generally choosing spots that are considered “non culinary destinations”. In 2008, Cirkiel opened Parkside to pay homage to the Bronx Housing Project in New York where his father grew up. Parkside is located on 6th street, which at the time, was not popular for its restaurants and fine dining spots. He designs his restaurants around the prospect of community and bringing people together.

68 Degrees’ name comes from the average temperature of the Deep Eddy Pool, which happens to be right next door. She started the restaurant with her sister to bring their Italian roots to the Austin area, while still honoring the Deep Eddy, and other aspects of the local culture.

Growing up in Austin, Cirkiel has always appreciated Austin’s food culture. “Austin’s kind of laid back, it doesn’t necessarily have such a stuffy attitude… historically, it's a very welcoming place,” says Cirkiel. Since he was brought up on a farm, his family often used what they had at home, which is how he picked up sustainable eating habits.

For Cirkiel’s seafood restaurants that cannot be sourced from Austin, he gets fish from a small family distributor in Canada. “This way, it still maintains that small ethos of local, even if the actual product isn’t locally sourced,” says Cirkiel.

Cirkiel’s travels across the world and his Austin roots have been the main influence for his restaurants. “I am constantly going to restaurants, to farms, to different growers and producers to learn,” says Cirkiel.

Joan Gillcrist, the owner of 68 Degrees, which is an ingredient driven restaurant in central Austin, shares many of the same values as Cirkiel. For her, having a restaurant in the central area really capitalizes on Austin’s communal culture.

“On a special occasion, people will drive wherever to get something to eat. But otherwise they mostly stay in their

“The evolution of traffic in Austin has really compartmentalized the restaurant interest in this town,” Gillcrist comments. To her, it is very important to have many other restaurants in the area that also take part in ingredient driven practices, so that there can be a variety of options for the people. Being an ingredient driven restaurant means that the menu is constructed around quality foods that are available at that particular time. “Sometimes with the food supply chain, things shift, and you won’t be able to get a specific item for a long time,” says Gillcrist. For those scenarios, rather than substituting a particular food for a lower quality ingredient, they will take this dish off the menu entirely.

Growing up, Gillcrist and her sister used to help their mother in the kitchen, which is where they both gained their love and interest for ingredient driven food. Their family was always very interested in healthy cooking, and followed in the footsteps of Julia Child, Martha Stewart, and other popular chefs. They cooked with what was available locally at the time and almost always cooked at home because of the lack of locally sourced restaurants at the time.

“What we do is a little bit tricky, and it’s not very popular because it is hard. You have to understand the industry really well,” says Gillcrist. She wishes that others will soon join in on trying to add some form of sustainability to their restaurants. Despite the unpredictable nature in the availability of ingredients, 68 Degrees strives to continue to provide the guests with a consistent experience, while still being affordable.

The sustainability movement has risen in recent years, as customers are becoming more aware of where their food is coming from. So far, this movement has gained a lot of support and popularity, and people are becoming more aware of the benefits of sourcing nearby.

Richard Walters, a customer at Jack Allen’s, which is also a locally owned restaurant, believes that restaurants being transparent about where their food comes from is very important.

“I was aware that their food was locally sourced and I could notice that the food was of higher quality because of this,” says Walters. He has been a customer since the early 2000s, and has witnessed the ever-changing atmosphere of Jack Allens. Everything in their restaurant is local, from the food to the art on the walls. They also donate to the community to support other local charities.“It’s great that they are doing their part in helping the local community and serving good food to their customers,” says Walters.

Consumers and business owners alike are beginning to understand the benefits of supporting the communities through farmers markets and sourcing locally; and many hope that this movement will continue to grow in the near future. These restaurants are only a small part of the movement to make Austin a fresher and greener place for everyone living here.

“Not everything can be made and grown here in Austin, but you can make a very conscious decision of how and where you spend your money. That can have a huge impact on the community,” says Cirkiel. Many diners hope that people will adopt sustainable practices, no matter how small.