Idealist restaurateur couple Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz, who from their beginnings with Mission Street Food and Mission Chinese Food sought to give back to the community by donating proceeds from every meal to food charities, have inked a deal to open a new restaurant with new, environmentally progressive aims. It's called The Perennial, and with the help of current Mission Chinese chef and former Mission Bowling Club chef Chris Kuyuna, they hope to take their thoughtful and sustainable approach a step further than they already did with the charitable component of their other Mission restaurant Commonwealth.
Meat, of course, will all be sustainably and locally sourced, but the focus of the menu will be on vegetables, with breads from Tartine Bakery's Chad Robertson. We probably won't know much more about the menu for a few months, but, as the Chron notes, the team is hoping "to avoid creating a menu that resembles a brochure — or a 'Portlandia' sketch." Good idea.
Not content to use the city's compost program for their food waste, Myint and Leibowitz are pledging to take all their vegetable and meat scraps to worm and maggot bins, respectively, somewhere in West Oakland. They'll also have a 2,000-square-foot aquaponic greenhouse there, and so all the waste will come full circle and be used to fertilize future food for the restaurant.
Expect The Perennial to open in the base of the Ava apartment building at 59 Ninth Street (at Mission) around February. Look for updates on Facebook.