Going vegetarian: why restaurants and bars are meat-free for a year at Asia-Pacific hospitality group Ovolo Hotels
- The Ovolo chain, with hotels in Australia and Hong Kong, already does things differently, such as not charging for extras like the minibar or Wi-fi
- Now the whole group is going vegetarian in all its bars and restaurants for 365 days
Ovolo Hotels has become the first hotel group to go completely vegetarian across all its restaurants, bars and food services.
“We do the kind of stuff no one else does,” says the group’s CEO, Girish Jhunjhnuwala, who prides himself on being a disrupter. “We have redefined the market.”
The group operates eight properties, two in Hong Kong and six in Australia. When he founded Ovolo in 2010, Jhunjhnuwala was determined to address the issues that irked him about hotel stays. Top of the list were the add-ons charged for everything from Wi-fi to the minibar.
“For us everything is free. You can take what you like from the minibar, we don’t nickel-and-dime you,” says Jhunjhnuwala, who was born and raised in Hong Kong.
Launched on October 1 – World Vegetarian Day – the group’s “Year of the Veg” hasn’t come totally out of the blue. In March 2018, American chef Matthew Kenney known for his plant-based cooking, opened the Alibi Bar & Kitchen at the Ovolo Woolloomooloo, one of the group’s two Sydney properties. And in early 2019, Veda opened in Ovolo Central, becoming Hong Kong’s first vegetarian hotel restaurant.