Otarian restaurant provides a carbon footprint for all of its menu items, such as the Tex Mex veggie burger and veggie tacos, shown above. The footprint is determined by internationally recognized standards. Photos courtesy of Otarian

NEW YORK – The cliché is that if you want something done right you should do it yourself – and Otarian restaurant founder Radhika Oswal is the embodiment of this. Oswal, who has no previous restaurant experience, became so frustrated trying to find good vegetarian food options that she decided to start her own vegetarian restaurant.

With its first two locations recently opened in New York and two more shortly on tap in London, Otarian is on track for the vision that Oswal has for a boutique, fast-casual, vegetarian restaurant chain.

“To be honest it was just being hungry and being a vegetarian and wanting to find food,” Oswal said. “It began on a whim.”

However, this whim quickly turned into business reality, though Oswal admits that it took longer to get the restaurant off the ground than she thought it would, figuring that she would be able to put something together in a couple of months, not the three years it actually took.

During this time though, the Otarian concept flourished beyond just savory vegetarian cuisine and into a dining option that incorporated the concept of sustainability.

Otarian provides a carbon footprint for all of its menu items according to the internationally recognized standards of Publicly Available Specification 2050, a method for measuring the embodied greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services. Otarian is also participating in the testing of the World Resources Institute’s new product carbon foot printing standard. For Oswal, the goal is simple – help diners better understand the environmental impact of their food choices in a straightforward way that can be measured.

“I wanted to provide food that was loving life and the planet,” she said. “It was a holistic way of looking at sustainability for me.”

“I think people are environmentally conscious nowadays, but I think what stops people is they are time conscious. They are money conscious. They think what has that got to do with me,” Oswal added. “What I am trying to do is make global warming even applicable to people in their daily lives.”

Oswal

Oswal defines her three key pillars of sustainability as environmental, social and economical. “I think a truly sustainable concept is something that maximizes the strength of these three pillars without too much of a trade off,” she said.

Oswal did her research on vegetarian food, but also closely examined the impact of particularly foods on the environment. She worked with 14 chefs from around the world to come up with hundreds of menu items. This was whittled down to approximately 30 menu items, though she points out that the menu will change based on location and the availability of certain ingredients and food products in different locations.

“I knew what I wanted to do was provide global food that was locally sustainable,” she said.

The menu features items such as Mushroom O Cheese Flatbread, Beet O Feta Salad, Roasted Vegetable Lasagne, VegO Burger, Spinach Potato O Tart, Vegetable Biryani, Mushroom O Paneer Wrap, Red Curry Noodles and Penne O Gratin. Otarian also features “Carbon Saving Combo” meals that allow consumers to order a “set” meal that represents the largest possible carbon savings – or a 21 mile drive in an eco-car.

Specifics for sustainability in regards to Otarian’s operations and menu include:

• Dishes that yield lower carbon foot prints than comparable meat-based dishes – “Carbon Saving Combos” provide at least 3 kilograms of carbon savings compared to equivalent meat-based dishes.
  
• No air freight policy – ingredients that would typically be air freighted, such as Otarian’s fresh herbs from Israel or select produce from California, are instead transported by road. Dishes are reformulated to exclude these ingredients if a reliable supply is unavailable without using air transport.
  
• Otarian has waste collected by private companies to ensure it is recycled or composted, despite having to pay as much as double the price for this. All told, Otarian claims 98 percent of its waste is composted or recycled.
  
• All packaging is compostable, recyclable or reusable – Otarian uses innovative materials like bagasse to help minimize the environmental impact of the packaging. Bagasse is a fully bio-degradable by-product of the sugar cane industry that has historically been treated as waste.
  
• The restaurant has a focus on sustainable design and architecture, incorporating sustainable materials throughout the establishment, including floor tiles made from recycled glass, table tops made using recycled plastic, ceiling décor made from recycled aluminium and chairs made from sustainably sourced bamboo.

Oswal said that the reaction to Otarian has been great so far. According to her, customers love the food and are still trying to “wrap their head around” the carbon footprint concept connected to the restaurant’s food offerings. As she explains it – most people understand you can reduce your carbon footprint when you change from driving a gas-powered car to a hybrid, but most don’t really think that they can also save carbon by switching from beef lasagne to vegetable lasagne.

She has a great belief that the concept will continue to catch on. “I think it is great to have something that is healthy to both you and the environment. So why wouldn’t you do it?” said Oswal.

A native of New Delhi, India, who still has family in Punjab, Oswal now lives in Australia. She decided to launch Otarian in New York and London because she believes these are good markets for a concept like Otarian with large communities of consumers that have strong environmental concerns. She also views them as trendsetting cities open to such a new kind of restaurant concept. Other potential markets include San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as countries such as Germany and Sweden.

Otarian restaurants are owned by Oswal Group Global, an Australian-based business owned by Radhika and her husband Pankaj. The company has interests in petrochemicals, resources, transportation, logistics and real estate. On top of the four stores already planned, the aim is to open one more in New York and one more in London later in 2010. Oswal has no plans to franchise any restaurants at this time and all locations will be company owned.