Denver Restaurant Pasque Is all but Eliminating Food Waste

Seasonal and local are no longer the buzzy descriptors for new restaurants that they once were, and that’s a good thing. With those factors well established, the next generation of responsible restaurant aims for zero-waste, and this restaurant calls it nature-forward. With a sustainably minded design and holistic commitment to responsible sourcing and disposal, Denver’s Pasque, named for an early-blooming local wildflower, is exactly that.

Pasque itself is early blooming in another sense. Located in Denver’s brand new Populus hotel and helmed by Executive Chef Ian Wortham, Pasque is the first restaurant in downtown Denver to employ an on-site biodigestor to all but eliminate food waste from its operations.

Local sourcing and seasonality were a given for Pasque, a restaurant that evokes the wholesome woodsiness of an arboretum. Dishes are mindfully portioned and utilize a creative, whole-product approach. Rather than every dish having unique components, expect to see menu repeats. Where lamb loin appears on the menu, so does lamb ragu. Roasted carrots get a carrot vinaigrette. Local sheep’s milk ricotta is found in more than one appetizer and on the dessert menu.

“It's just being careful, and always asking, ‘could we use this?’” says Wortham, regarding any food scrap or trim. He acknowledges that repurposing in this way isn’t a new mentality for chefs, whether for environmental or financial concerns. Working within a major hotel operation toward a zero-waste goal is both a thrill and a challenge. “There's a predisposition, I think, when you're doing a huge operation, to lean on cutting out steps or just getting rid of stuff,” he says. “[Reducing waste] is really about finding the time, and the direction here is to make that time happen.”

To that end, seeking easily implemented solutions that could work at scale among the various players in Populus, from the real estate developer to hotel management and restaurant operation, “was something that came up during the ideation phase,” says Wortham. Moreso than just sourcing locally to reduce its carbon footprint and finding organic ways to cut down the amount of food destined for landfill, the question became, “How do we really execute on Urban Villages’ vision for carbon sequestration in all its operations?”

“We were always going to compost,” says Wortham, a mindset that isn’t a hard sell in Colorado, which is one of the top five states in the U.S. for its full-scale food waste composting infrastructure. The chef formerly worked at Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, a city where composting is mandatory. But the particular ease of Pasque’s near zero-waste operation, and the goal of the team behind Populus, was realized when a colleague of Wotham’s discovered a service called BioGreen360, a unique model among sustainability solutions in that it operates as a subscription program.

“We don’t buy the machine but rent it,” explains Wortham. A monthly service fee includes regular machine maintenance as well removal of the processed food waste to a compost distributor that supplies local farms. “It looks expensive on paper,” he says, “but if you compare it to your hauling charges for trash pickup, it completely offsets the cost. So, why would you not do this?”

Implementation of a new way of working can be challenging, but since Pasque was starting from scratch, it was relatively easy to get the necessary buy-in from both front and back of house. “When you have a clean slate, it's much easier to get things going in a certain way, as opposed to having to change habits,” he says. “There were no habits, so that was a huge help in executing the program.” That, and management addressed its commitment to food waste elimination during the interview process and pre-opening, with support from BioGreen360 for training. “It was made clear that this is something that we really do care about doing, and it's going to be a big part of the program.”

Small bus tubs are available at the dish station for plate scraps, and once full, they're transferred to the biodigestor, which is as easy as operating a smartphone, according to Wortham. All of Pasque’s staff are sanctioned to operate the machine.

Populus also employs an environmental experience manager for data analysis, and so far, the numbers are empowering. “For property-wide landfill diversion, right now we're at 60%,” says Wortham, a statistic that currently includes waste from construction that’s still in progress. “Once that phases out, it'll be even higher.” Meanwhile, the kitchen team aims to fine tune their operations to reduce the amount of food waste that goes into the biodigester to begin with. “We're never going to have the perfect system,” he says, “but it's an evolving, moving target to always be a little bit better.”