Local chefs go the extra mile, wrestling with ambiguities, to lighten their footprint and impact on Mother Earth.

Consider this: Buying food from local sources keeps the carbon footprint shallow. On the other hand, it sometimes makes sense for a restaurant to branch out geographically for products that are raised on regenerative farms and in intelligent fisheries.

More inconsistencies in the world of sustainable food exist. Plant-based diets, for instance, are good for the body and the planet. This often involves working with protein alternatives. Yet, you have to consider how the ingredients for plant-based proteins are produced, and sometimes manipulating vegetables to taste and feel like meat requires additives that can mess with how you feel.

Another example: Carefully sourced, farm-raised fish are healthier and can save depleting wild populations. The catch here? Locally, environmental organizations protest the increase in nutrients the farms can bring, potentially causing more red tide outbreaks.

So, what makes the best sustainable restaurants? The answer is not always clear-cut, but today’s conscientious chefs agree the effort is essential for the future of their business and our world. Some local chefs leap quantumly beyond the bounds of early definitions of sustainability and battle with the double-edged sword of inconsistencies.

Fabrizio Aielli and his wife Ingrid have raised the standard of wining and dining in Naples since their culinary debut during the Naples Winter Wine Festival.

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“Wine is a very, very important part of food culture,” Fabrizio Aielli, chef-owner of five Florida restaurants, says. “Being from Italy, wine is the way we grew up. I cannot imagine having dinner without wine. A glass of wine emphasizes your palate and just makes you happy.”

As important as wine itself is to Fabrizio’s life and restaurant empire, the Naples Winter Wine Festival (NWWF) played a crucial role in the trajectory of his career. He was running an A-list Washington, D.C., restaurant when he was invited in 2005 as a celebrity chef for the fifth annual festival.

He and his wife Ingrid, who is also his business partner, had been vacationing in Naples since 2001. “That time, with the wine festival, we were down here not for vacation but for work, and that’s when the idea came to my mind to open a restaurant,” he says with his infectious, trademark smile.

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The Culinary & Hospitality Education Foundation of Southwest Florida will distribute $42,000 in scholarships to Collier and Lee county students who intend to pursue careers and education in hospitality or culinary arts. What a great accomplishment by the Culinary & Hospitaility Education Foundation of Southwest Florida! The money has been raised at the last CHEF charity showdown between our corporate Chef Jason Goddard, and Chef Asif Syed (21 Spices by Chef Asif.)

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The inaugural ideas festival partnered with the James Beard Foundation and a team of national and local chefs to spotlight sustainability—and throw one heck of a party.

As it came to a close, the rest of the night’s chefs were brought onstage—a mix of local talent, including Asif Syed of 21 Spices, Jason Goddard of Sea Salt and Vincenzo Betulia of The French, plus a Miami-based pastry chef Soraya Kilgore of MadLab Creamery. They each announced what dish the audience had to look forward to in a matter of minutes at the party, and how it dovetailed with the sustainable theme.

And then everyone was off to eat, drink and be merry—and think about the big ideas behind them and what was still left in store.

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Jason Goddard was once a farm boy in the rolling hills and limestone bluffs of eastern Iowa.

On a 3½ acre plot of land on the Mississippi River, Goddard helped his family grow sweet corn, okra and five different varieties of beans. It’s there he developed an understanding of food and its growing cycle. How ingredients should be fresh and local and pesticide-free.

And now he’s applying those practices as corporate chef of three Naples restaurants and one in St. Petersburg.

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