Gault&Millau UAE 2022’s Sustainable Kitchen of the Year winner, BOCA , has unveiled a new cocktail menu aimed at cutting back on kitchen waste.
Inspired by local flavours, and making use of ingredients that would otherwise be destined for the compost heap, the zero-waste drinks list comes after months of collaboration and research by the restaurant’s bar and kitchen teams.
“Our new bar offering features ingredients that are local and new, perhaps never been explored in the bar,” explains founder and GM Omar Shihab. “Some of the ingredients are made out of waste from the kitchen. Things like tomato water and fruit skins. We found ways to maximise those ingredients. For example, we use the skins as dehydrated garnish.
“We also thought it was very important to tap into what the kitchen usually buys. That was our inspiration for the pimientos del padron cocktail, which is our take on a paloma, made with BOCA’s favourite tapas.”
While learning to work with new ingredients can be challenging for chefs and mixologists alike, the BOCA Dubai team’s expertise in waste reduction, coupled with the restaurant’s extensive use of local and sustainable ingredients, made the experiment seem more achievable, Shihab explains: “We understand these ingredients’ taste profiles and we know how they react to specific preservation methods.
“Giedre Bielskyte, our bar manager, was mapping out the taste profiles of each drink and seeing what we need to match the botanics of the cocktail’s main liquor. We were then able to look at new items that are considered waste in the kitchen.”
The team has also given close consideration to local market trends, with the new menu’s offerings also available in no and low-ABV form for non-drinking customers thanks to a partnership with alcohol-free alternative spirits from Lyre’s.
“We are going through an evolution in the market. We are seeing a lot of new bars and menus including the no ABV option. The idea is how to integrate that in an organic way, without having to create a brand new category and that’s what we are doing with this menu. We are using Lyre’s products in replacement for alcoholic products. So essentially we keep the cocktail the same but use zero-proof spirits instead. It is important not to alienate the non-drinkers.”
In addition to making extensive use of fruit and vegetable surplus in the new drinks list, the bar team has also focussed on local and regional ingredients wherever possible, creating a foraged cold brew martini combining the UAE’s own Boon coffee with native desert plant khansour and local dried apricots, with an apricot leather garnish made from the fruit’s skin.
The ‘Summer in Bethlehem’ cocktail, meanwhile, features Palestinian brandy, and a frankincense negroni combines white Omani frankincense with tomato pulp and native basil.
“We spent a lot of time with the kitchen team when developing this menu,” Bielskyte explains.” They helped us explore new ingredients and provided us with a new source that may have been destined for the bin.”
Keen to ensure the new offering arrived with a bit of fanfare, BOCA has also redesigned the physical cocktail menu with the help of Argentinian artist Gabriel Sancho.
“We picked Gabriel Sancho to design our entire cocktail menu as a way to reimagine and reintroduce our menu to our guests,” Shihab explains. “His vision gave new life and perspective to our menu and that is something that works well with our clientele. We thought his art was quirky and witty and funny.
“Art is an integral part of BOCA,” he continues. “When we constructed the place, our brief for our interior designer was to make sure that a part of the restaurant was made available to the art community. We believe that DIFC is such an important point on the art trail of Dubai. We dedicated our walls to art.”
BOCA’s new cocktail menu launches on Monday, September 12, 2022