Food is…Dignity
Social and environmental responsibility
Food is so much more than just feeding your body. Food feeds a neighborhood, brings people closer together and lifts communities. Food is a gift and we are to take care of the earth that provides us with so much.
Not only do we provide unique culinary experiences but we are also committed to make our communities and environment a wonderful place for generations to come.
We are proud members of The Sustainable Restaurant Association. In 2024-2025 we were awarded the highest accolade of 3 stars of the Food Made Good Standard. This is one of the most coveted and hardest recognition to obtain in the sustainable food industry worldwide.
In November 2024, chef Josiah Hernández and restaurant Chef’s Garden was awarded, the best sustainable restaurant in Latin America, Spain and Portugal by the Academia Iberoamericana de Gastronomía. This is the first time that Puerto Rico wins such a highly esteemed recognition on a global scale.
Since 2022, Chef’s Garden has been certified officially as a sustainable restaurant by the Fundación de Restaurantes Sostenibles. This is the first time that a restaurant in the Caribbean is officially certified as sustainable by a European organization.
Through Chef’s Garden’s non-profit Siembra Vida, we were certified as an official agrotouristic destination by the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. This is the first and only agrotouristic destination in the city of Rincón Puerto Rico, certified by PRTC.
Siembra Vida
Our 501 (c) non-profit, Siembra Vida Inc., works in 3 Latin American countries. We lift up vulnerable communities through farm-to-table experiences. In Puerto Rico, we work with children of the community teaching cooking classes in our program called “Little Chefs”. We also build community gardens and teach agriculture in our “club semillita” program. We also train leaders to build community gardens through our “Agro Influencer” program. In Colombia we work in a refugee community in Cali Colombia where we developed 5 community gardens, 2 community kitchens and a Community center. In Colombia we work with children, single mothers, men and the elderly teaching culinary arts, gardening and providing an afterschool program. We also feed children everyday. In Nicaragua we work in communities with great needs growing food and teaching agriculture to children and families. To find out more information, check out our Siembra Vida website:
Sustainability
Chef’s Garden operates off-grid with over 12,000 watts of solar energy for the restaurant and bed & breakfast. We also collect over 60,000 gallons of rain water every year that gets filtered and is cleaner than bottled water. The recycled water is used for our gardens, kitchen, bathrooms and bed & breakfast. Our physical structures are made so that natural light enters as well as many areas that are outdoor surrounded by vegetation, lowering the outside temperatures, lowering the use of lightbulbs during the day and lowering the energy used for our air-conditioning systems.
Farm-to-table model
Chef’s Garden is privileged to have various organic and ecological gardens in the property that supplies ingredients to the kitchen. They are also used for educational purposes. In the kitchen, we compost our food scraps. We grow not only horticulture varieties but also ancestral varieties that has shaped the Caribbean’s culinary culture for the last few thousand years. We identify, research, grow and forage the unique ingredients that originated from the Caribbean region. We identify farmers that grow these almost-lost ingredients and connect chefs to support these farmers. We explore all possibilities for each ingredient and create plates that tell stories of culture, history and hope. We also work with professors to identify local edible seaweed varieties from our ocean ecosystem and use them sustainably in our menu educating customers. We have even developed a natural plant-based meat alternative using ancestral ingredients. We call it the “Malanga Burger” or “Malanga meat”.
Connecting with our community
We work hard to find farmers, fishmongers and all types of producers that provide Caribbean ingredients. We support them in order to not loose our ancestral ingredients. We also provide jobs to members of our community and even provide day care for mothers we employee with children. Our staff is encouraged to grow with us and participate in our menu creation, creative processes and in the growth of the business. Everyone is heard.
