philippajacks.co.uk

So, after six years living in North London a hop, skip and a jump from the Duke of Cambridge organic pub in Angel, I finally made it there for dinner this week…now that I live four miles south of the river.

The pub has a staggering list of awards and credentials, including being the only UK pub certified by the Soil Association; creator of the first fish policy to gain Marine Conservation Society approval; London Dining Pub winner in the Good Pub Guide three times; and winner of an RSPCA Ethical Business Award. Owner Geetie Singh received an MBE in 2009.

I wondered whether the Duke of Cambridge’s critical acclaim may have gone to its head and turned it into a pretentious gastropub (or that it might be so evangelically organic that I’d feel out of place not dressed from head-to-toe in hemp).

Happily, this was not the case at all. Being several hundred metres off Essex Road means the clientele has made a conscious effort to be there. Mismatched tables and chairs, candle-lighting and friendly staff make it cosy and welcoming, and I was fascinated by the shelves packed with homemade jars of pickles and preserves.

The pub’s commitment to locally-grown and organic produce is impressive: 80% of fresh produce comes from the Home Counties, and only those ingredients which are in season are used. Tea, coffee, chocolate and nuts are Fair Trade; wine, beer and soft drinks are organic; and the pub buys and uses entire animals, wasting nothing at all. Lesser-known, sustainably-caught fish like gurnard and pollack are preferred and only filtered tap water is served.

But something I was particularly interested to hear about was the Duke of Cambridge’s commitment to its local community. Chefs from the pub have trained the cooks at nearby Thornhill Primary School to create healthy menus of local produce. They have also worked with Kate Greenaway Nursery to create a community kitchen, and taught the pupils at Highbury Fields Secondary School to cook and serve healthy, organic dishes to their classmates. It’s this level of community-involvement that puts the Duke of Cambridge in a different league to some of London’s other excellent organic eateries, like Bumpkin and Daylesford Organic cafés, for me.

The pub’s insistence on seasonal produce means the menu changes twice a day, but you can download a sample menu for each season to give you an idea of the treats in store. On the menu on Thursday night was Stichelton and pear salad; duck with potatoes; sustainably-sourced mussels with white wine, cream and parsley; wild boar; quiche with Portobello mushrooms and beetroot salad and more. I plumped for crispy goose croquettes served with a spicy tomato salsa that cut through the richness of the goose perfectly. At £8-£12 for starters and £12-£22 for main courses, it is certainly not a cheap-eat. But if you’ll consider paying a premium to know where your steak or spinach came from, the D of C is definitely worth crossing the river for.

*See 4Food for articles on topics including food waste, Fairtrade food, and where to buy sustainable fish.

I’m chuffed to say I won Travel Trade Feature of the Year at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s annual media awards last week. I won the award for the Jamaica feature I wrote about Bluefields Bay!… Continue reading

[My blog on TTG website, ttgdigital.com]

One of the most interesting events of WTM for me was the launch by Kuoni of the UK’s first Fair Trade-certified holiday.

Kuoni teamed up with Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA), which has been working to promote the importance of fair trade in tourism for a decade, in order to gain certification of all aspects of the supply chain on a 13-night South Africa package.

While the concept of fairly-traded cocoa… Continue reading

At a tourism conference in Panama last week, I got chance to catch up with the Rainforest Alliance and hear about its latest news.

Federico Solano described a new scheme called Tour Operators Promoting Sustainability, or TOPS, for both local Latin American tourism companies and those sending customers from the UK and other countries.

After bringing together travel companies that have made a commitment to sustainable practices, the Alliance hopes to launch a group-wide marketing campaign, creating one of the world’s first networks of green-certified operators… Continue reading

I wrote in July about Green Travel Guides’ visit to Bluefields Bay in Jamaica, a project I visited in January of this year. The film crew has now completed another video for the Travel Foundation in Jamaica, this time focussing on Hotel Mocking Bird Hill, near Port Antonio.

It’s a hotel I first learnt about at World Travel Market last year, when it won the ‘best accommodation for the environment‘ category at the Responsible Tourism Awards… Continue reading

My blog on a new series of car-free walks in Shropshire is now live on Greentraveller.co.uk

The daily blogs I wrote while in South Africa earlier this year are now live on the Telegraph.co.uk site… Click here to read about my six days of training to be a safari guide, and 24 action-packed hours in Johannesburg.

&nbsp… Continue reading

A Green Travel Guides crew has just been out to Jamaica to film the latest developments from the marine sanctuary project I reported on in January. Assisted by The Travel Foundation and Virgin Holidays, local fishermen have created Jamaica’s largest marine reserve, to allow depleted fish stocks to recover.

The Bluefields Bay reserve is now a year old, and it seems that fish stocks have gone from strength to strength since my visit at the start of the year. The wardens… Continue reading

Blogs from my recent trip to the New Forest are now live on Greentraveller.co.uk, as part of an in-depth guide to sustainable tourism in the New Forest district:

A Q&A with Anthony Climpson OBE, tourism manager of the New Forest

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Canoeing in the New Forest

Strawberry mountain

I loved Chelsea Flower Show last year so was keen to go along when the Bermuda Department of Tourism invited me. Last year, most of my favourite gardens were big show gardens outdoors, but this year I made more time for the exhibitors inside the floral marquee, and found lots of interesting smaller gardens. Here’s the 10 I liked best overall this year (in no particular order):

1. The tunnel of clematis of all different shades of purple and… Continue reading