At Coppi’s Organic restaurant in Washington, DC, co-owners Carlos and Nori Amaya, a brother-sister team, are personally committed to organically and sustainably grown food, clean energy and reduce-reuse-recycle principles. But beyond that, they are steadfastly dedicated to the people around them—their employees, neighborhood and the wider community—perhaps the most important element of all when it comes to sustainable living.
Located in the trendy U-Street corridor, Coppi’s offers gourmet seafood and meat, homemade pasta, and high-end pizza, with the menu changing frequently to accommodate seasonal variations and availability of the best local foods. Preparing food informed by the Ligurian cuisine of northern Italy, Carlos, who is also the chef, uses almost entirely organic produce, grass-fed and free-range meats and poultry, and organic, free-range eggs. He also buys only sustainably sourced fish. The Amayas, who purchased the restaurant in 2003, have cultivated relationships with many area farmers, in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Customers notice the difference: “The five cheese pizza will change your life,” says regular customer Walker Chaffin. “The wine is organic and delicious …. I love this mixed salad,” says Chaffin. Michael Hand, an agricultural economist and his wife Kathryn Benz, also regulars, say they keep coming back, because Coppi’s makes the “best vegetarian pizza around.”
Buying local, whether food or other products, is important to support the local economy, says Carlos, a member of the steering committee of Local First DC, a project of the Latino Economic Development Corp (LEDC) and the DC affiliate of the nationwide network Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). “If I’m buying from you [locally], I’m keeping the local economy growing,” he says. “It’s important that I feed my local economy in this way.”
The restaurant boasts a hemispherical wood-burning oven, which helps Coppi’s conserve electricity, because everything other than pasta is prepared in the oven. Since it’s heated to well over 1000 degrees with wood each day, the oven doesn’t need to be left on 24 hours a day like at most pizzerias. “My kitchen does not have a gas stove,” Carlos explains. “I put everything together on a searing pan” in the oven, he adds, whether it’s braised beef short ribs, North Atlantic monkfish or Maryland squash blossoms. Carlos and his staff also make all Coppi’s pasta fresh every day, both to offer customers the best meals and to save on electricity. “If we used hard pasta, we’d have to precook the pasta and reheat it,” he explains.
The restaurant has only one gas line, chiefly to maintain the high water temperature required by law for dishwashing, and the electricity Coppi’s does use to power its low-wattage light bulbs is wind-generated. Also, by cooperating with other businesses through Local First DC to buy in bulk, Coppi’s is able to purchase its “green” electricity at a discount from Clean Currents, a clean energy broker.
By “coming together,” the community can spread a stronger message about sustainability, says Carlos. “We’re not trying to become sustainable as an individual. We are trying to become sustainable as a whole. We want to use the U-Street corridor as an example,” he says. Similarly, he hopes the price of organic food will decline if stronger demand from consumers causes more farmers to supply greater quantities of it. “Eating organic food … should not be a luxury.”
The staff at Coppi’s further reduces its carbon footprint by striving to keep waste to a minimum. By carefully gauging demand, an ability that “comes from a watchful eye and experience, and understanding your numbers,” they can virtually eliminate leftovers, Carlos explains. “Everything that we make is for today,” he says. “If I am short, then I am sold out.” Enjoying the spontaneity and understanding the reasoning, customers don’t mind impromptu menu changes, he says.
All the products used at Coppi’s are carefully evaluated in terms of environmental impact. Tablecloths were eliminated to save the electricity it would take to clean them. To-go containers are recyclable and don’t come with plastic bags, unless customers specifically ask for them.
The Amayas are as concerned with the human impact of their operation as they are with its environmental impact. “If there’s no harmony in the house, there’s no harmony in the food,” Carlos says. The staff is tightly knit; most have been at Coppi’s for years and describe themselves as “family.” Several staff members, including Carlos and Nori, recently awaited the birth of the sous chef’s baby at the hospital. With low staff turnover, Coppi’s doesn’t have to grapple with constant training or quality control problems. And satisfied employees lead to the genuinely friendly service that helps secure the regular clientele.
Carlos and Nori extend their commitment to community beyond the doors of the restaurant. They are actively involved in efforts to improve public school food. Carlos also works with underprivileged kids at the Hung Tao Choy Mei Leadership Institute, the martial arts school where he trained as a youth and now volunteers as an instructor.
Exposure to traditional foodways through childhood visits to their grandparents in El Salvador, where tortillas were baked in an oven not unlike the one at Coppi’s, makes the Amayas aware that what they’re doing isn’t really new. Emphasizing that anyone can do it, they see Coppi’s as a vehicle to share the sustainable vision. “It starts with food,” Nori says. “It becomes a lifestyle to help the planet.”
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