Celebrating BOCA's Big Sustainability Win at MENA's 50 Best Restaurants

Located in the heart of Dubai’s financial district and led by Omar Shihab and Chef Patricia Roig, BOCA is a modern Spanish restaurant with a strong commitment to sustainability — evidenced through its three-star Food Made Good certification! The kitchen team at BOCA shows great vision and originality in creating Mediterranean-inspired dishes using local, foraged and native ingredients. 

As with all of the 50 Best events across the year, our team of sustainability consultants judged the Sustainable Restaurant Award for MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants, announced last night in Abu Dhabi.  

From how they source their ingredients to their actions to prevent, monitor and reduce waste, BOCA stood out for their holistic approach to sustainability — as set out in their sustainability manifesto, available on their website. In fact, BOCA is admirably active and vocal within the sustainability space, contributing to discussions on sustainable practices in the restaurant industry from a pilot study on national food loss and waste campaign to COP28.  

They’re also an excellent example of the impact that can be achieved through smart collaborations with other organisations, like working with Emirates Nature-WWF on a halophyte advocacy programme and partnering with marine conservation organisation Azraq. Giving back is also part of the programme: BOCA is active in fundraising for a variety of initiatives.  

Let’s take a deeper look at how they tackle sustainability across the three pillars of our Food Made Good Framework: Sourcing, Society and Environment.  

SUSTAINABLE SOURCING AT BOCA 

Provenance is a matter of pride at BOCA, with menus a celebration of local, native and heirloom ingredients. This is highlighted to guests through an illustrated map of the UAE showing where their ingredients have come from, while their new wine menu emphasises sustainable practices and champions women in wine. 

As mentioned, BOCA works with Emirates Nature-WWF and ICBA on a programme advocating for the use of local halophytes in gastronomy; these edible plants (such as salicornia and arthrocaulon) are adapted to thrive in saline environments and grow naturally along the UAE coastline. They serve as effective carbon sinks, removing carbon from the atmosphere and playing vital roles in local ecosystems, making them a climate-friendly (and climate-resilient) option. They also offer nutritional benefits, making them useful in protecting food security. 

BOCA partners with a variety of organisations to source sustainable seafood and works with Seafood Souq to audit all the marine ingredients they source. They also partner with marine conservation non-profit Azraq, support Dibba Bay in their reef-building project in Fujairah, and actively advocate for the reduced use of hamour fish in the UAE, in response to concerns about overfishing.  

WHAT DOES SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY LOOK LIKE AT BOCA? 

The team at BOCA is provided with plenty of training opportunities, including visits to farms and producers and the offer of advanced wine education through a third-party programme. This year, the restaurant also sponsored three employees to complete a sustainability programme at MAD Academy in Copenhagen! They also host a regular Sunday Breakfast Club, offering their space for wine education for sommeliers.  

Charity and fundraising are important at BOCA. They contribute to local charities and causes including Gulf for Good and The Puppy Ball, and hosted a fundraising event in support of Gaza. Guests are also included in how the restaurant gives back; in partnership with CarbonSifr, BOCA customers can choose to offset their meals through local initiatives. An example of this is their Valentine's Day event; along with a four-course pescatarian dinner and a kayaking trip, the package also included planting a mangrove tree on behalf of each couple through Azraq, contributing to the restoration of important mangrove forests.  

REDUCING BOCA'S ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT  

BOCA was a pilot project for the National Food Loss and Food Waste programme, ne'ma, which aims to reduce food loss and waste by half by 2030. One in-house initiative that really stands out is the creation of the Waste Officer role in 2019 — a staff member who is dedicated to tracking data across all waste categories, and works on-site to measure waste, educate the rest of the team, and create data-driven solutions.

This has helped them achieve a year of diverting organic waste from landfill to composting, repurposing cooking oil as biodiesel and using oyster shells to support the DIbba Bay Reef Oyster Project, where they serve as a base for new coral reef development. They have eliminated the use of new business cards, adding to stamps old menus instead, and partner with local businesses — such as olive oil importers or artisans — to repurpose empty wine bottles and crates.  

All of the above is working towards an ambitious target in place to ensure that 100% of their waste is diverted from landfill by 2026. They’ve also conducted a comprehensive carbon footprint analysis across scopes 1, 2 and 3, which has helped guide their sustainability efforts even further. 

Learn more about our work with 50 Best here. Interested in learning more about the Food Made Good Standard? Read about the certification itself here and discover the business benefits here! Got questions? Drop us a line at standard@thesra.org. 

Lead image from BOCA's Instagram page.