St Georges chef celebrates World Environment Day over fire – Editorial
Francky Godinho in the St George's Restaurant vegetable garden next door to the Havelock North restaurant. Photo / Natalie McNally
A high-profile Hawke’s Bay restaurant has cooked up a compelling way to celebrate World Environment Day.
On Thursday and Friday next week, Havelock North’s St Georges Restaurant is intentionally going dark for two days – turning off its lights and appliances (bar the fridge) to give customers an unusual full-dining service.
The event, dubbed “Unplugged”, means cooking, lighting and service will be reconceptualised through fire and candlelight.
Its first iteration on Friday sold out quickly, so another day was added.
The compelling gesture whet the appetite on many fronts.
For starters, you simply can’t beat the result of fare cooked over fire.
But more importantly (and less selfishly) it’s a handy reminder to start conversations around ways we can observe the day ourselves.
World Environment Day was started by the United Nations and is now a global platform for reflection and education. People all over the world celebrate the day every year on June 5.
The theme for 2026 is #NowForClimate – a call to a collective action to fight climate change and global warming.
But it seems one of the barriers to adherence in New Zealand is that this call to arms is increasingly hackneyed. There’s irony that something so timely is so timeworn.
We need a refresher on why it matters. And why it matters here.
Because despite the obvious and increasing frequency of symptoms such as extreme weather events, its narrative, sadly, remains a chestnut with little buy-in.
“Global”, too, is a prickly word for Kiwis. Many use our isolation and relative geographical insignificance as a platform for inaction. The squeeze too big for such little juice. A drop in the ocean.
But St Georges chef and owner, Francky Godinho, thinks drops in the ocean are important. His outlook is simple, and one formed very early.
The celebrated chef, who grows about 90% of the eatery’s produce just metres away from its kitchen, said the observance of World Environment Day was based on a philosophy of “small things help”.
He learned to cook 40 years ago on his family’s farm in Goa, India, where “electricity was a luxury”.
The energy-saving sittings while novel to guests, aren’t novel to him.
“My mother and my father fed seven kids day in, day out, cooking on a fire.”
The evenings would take guests back to how communities once lived and help them better connect with their dining partners, he said.
There’s an obvious social and environmental dividend to paring things back.
To boot, the restaurant’s wood fireplace would keep diners warm on the night.
The takeaway is that simplifying doesn’t always mean sacrificing.
Often, quite the opposite happens. A little squeeze, plenty of juice.