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Having worked in F&B for a few months in a summer at a 5-star hotel in Macau, from the back kitchen cutting up perfect-sized butter and making sure there was zero stain on wine glasses, to being a bus person getting dishes out on time, then placed to the front as a receptionist serving guests and making sure everyone left with a smile on their faces – the F&B industry has taught me a few things within a short period of time: 1) it really is your responsibility to make sure that every item is perfect before going out to your guest ; 2) first impression and attitude are at least 70%, the rest relies on how you manage anything that gets thrown at you without notice (like how I accidently tipped 8 glasses of orange juice on a guest’s back) ; 3) the F&B industry can be very wasteful – day and night a lot of food gets thrown away (fact: in Hong Kong 3,500+ tons of food waste get disposed of in landfills every day, including domestic food waste).
From “Farm-to-Bar”
Located in Central on Hollywood Road, Penicillin has soft launched for less than a month – it is a “closed-loop” eco-conscious bar that aims to produce little to no waste and to be as sustainable as possible through its sourcing and usage of ingredients.
From “farm-to-bar” Penicillin sources ingredients locally (I was told ~80%) to minimize its carbon footprints. Scraps produced during the cocktail making process would be reused and upcycled, some would go to the lab to be used in making items such as hand sanitizers.
They have partnered with ecoSPIRITS that targets to eliminate single-use glass bottles with a reusable and refillable spirits vessel system, each cocktail with the “eS” logo on the Penicillin menu will save an average of 155g of CO2 emissions (asked and confirmed by their staff as they have made recalculations)!
No straws, no coasters, no paper receipts. The team has put a lot of thoughts into the details so that it is sustainable-360 without compromising on the bar experience.
I had an amazing time there, refreshing cocktails, attentive service and Lok (the bartender) was very patient with me in answering all of my questions. He was happy to share their journey so far and the challenges in becoming a 100% sustainable bar in Hong Kong. In knowing that the team is still developing both their cocktail and snack menu and working hard to find the right sources of local ingredients – if you think you have great contacts (e.g., local farmers, sustainable food producers) go for a drink and share your connections with them!
By the way, I don’t mind going again.
