In recent years, numerous completely eco-sustainable bars have coming up to raise awareness of young and not young people. Places where you can meet for a cocktail and a chat with friends, making a contribution to the environment. Menus printed on recycled paper, organic products, energy saving, vintage furniture and alternative electrical systems. This is what characterizes a green venue, which respects nature and living beings.
The new ecological requirements are increasingly affecting the world of food and beverage.
And bars and entrepreneurs from all over the world are proving to be increasingly at the forefront of a completely current issue. This is the example of Surfer’s Garden, a place born in 2013 from an idea by Yuri Gelmini and Irene Bottura.
A green and original aesthetic
A surfers’ den, a riot of lights, flowers, greenery and deck chairs, where you can relax with special and well-made cocktails. Outside we find the structure of the glorious Campo Cappelli, while inside we are catapulted into a futurist atmosphere. Surfboards, skateboards and vintage furniture located in a secluded place in the Ripamonti area of Milan.
The same place has two lives: in summer it extends into the garden full of roses, in the winter it is a vintage-style refuge.
Ethical drinking: organic drinks that respect nature
The bar is entirely based on environmental sustainability.
The use of plants in mixing cocktails, the banned use of plastic straws and the integration of nature and the city. Here are the perfect ingredients to sip a drink while respecting the environment. The bar tender-gardener Yuri does an impeccable research job for his restaurant. He also demonstrates this by changing menus every six months, so that he can indulge his creativity. Underlying the philosophy of the restaurant and its founders is the idea of respecting herbs, which are first studied and then used as ingredients. The same ingredients designed to intertwave with the desires of consumers.
Regarding this, “la botanica del desiderio” (“the botany of desire”) is precisely the name of their latest drink list.
Inspired by the world of plants, the mix of elements developed around six desires: adventure, fantasy, fun, happiness, vanity and roots. In fact, drinks are created to give the customer first of all a sensory pleasure that involves all 5 senses, but also an imagination in nature itself. An uncontaminated nature, a sustainable world that respects the flora and aromatic flavors that recall wild places.
Also to let customers choose the drinks for their evening, the two partners thought of two different ways. Playful, but at the same time educational in terms of sustainability.
The first option is to choose your cocktail from the list of ingredients, which are associated with one of the six wishes and a plant. Or the guest is invited to choose a natural landscape among the 8 proposed: vegetable garden, park, lawn, garden, third landscape, jungle, desert and forest. Once the landscape has been selected, 3 questions must be answered and based on the answers, the staff will create an ad hoc and completely personal drink. This pushes the customer to imagine immersing himself in a natural landscape, to get to know it thoroughly through taste and to consider it important in its entirety.
A perfect example where sustainability, history and revolution come together at Surfer’s Garden can be found in “Liquirizia” (“Licorice”), a drink created by Gelmini. Drawing on his traditions and pouring his passion into an alcoholic, the barman managed to create a cocktail with the root of the licorice plant. In addition to being an authentic product, Yuri worked on a recipe that grandmothers recommended as a cough remedy. This testifies to the multiple benefits that plants have and how the Surfer’s Garden allows you to embark on a green and educational journey through them.
To enjoy the combination of many natural flavors, it is necessary to know the reality of this world. Venues that respect nature and involve it in the products they present, always respecting it.
