Inside Terroir Tapas restaurant in Bournemouth

The Southbourne Grove restaurant was one of just nine in the UK to be awarded with a Michelin Green Star Award in February, recognising it as being at the forefront of the industry for sustainable practices.

Stepping inside Terroir Tapas for the first time you could be easily mistaken for viewing it as a run of the mill one room restaurant with a selection of tables, a bar and open kitchen. Terroir is, however, inexplicably different.

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Its entire interior is built from recycled plastics. The main bar dining area is made from compressed recycled coffee cup lids, dining tables from yoghurt pots and foil lids, while its drinks menu board is made from charcoal.

And its ever-changing menu is sourced entirely from Dorset and other parts of the UK. “We have many farms locally which have all this great produce, and I feel we need to be using it,” said Jesse Wells, head chef at Terroir Tapas.

“Restaurants do naturally produce a lot of waste and James (the owner) has always been into whole sustainability so wanted to open a place to show people that restaurants can be run on no waste.

“There are restaurants that do zero waste, but we go the whole way.”

Using techniques such as fermenting, Jesse and his colleagues implore every trick in the book to ensure nothing goes to waste.

He said: “The menu changes extremely rapidly, it’s literally dictated by our farms and what we have preserved and how we can put that into a menu – and we never run out.

“I’m massively passionate about British produce. We don’t need to go further afield, just get the produce in its absolute prime, use it and then in two weeks it’s gone and on to the next one.”

Jesse himself hand-picks much produce and another chef himself dives for seaweed used on the menu. They also buy whole animals instead of singular joints, which was described as being as much about “respect” than anything.

Even the cleaning products used at Terroir are eco-friendly, including sanitiser made from sea salt from Chesil beach in Weymouth.

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Jesse also said he takes “no shortcuts”. If produce isn’t in season or available in the UK, it is simply removed from the menu. He explained: “It keeps it exciting for us in the kitchen and customers too because you might come here to eat and return two weeks later, and the menu is different because what you had before is out of season.

“It has become too easy for chefs to just use the same ingredients all year round. Flying stuff around the world isn’t sustainable.

“The important thing for me is we’ve got this far by not cooking for inspectors, we’ve done it by staying true to our ethos.”