Top five restaurants which grow their own
As part of our delicious Grow Your Own season, we recommend five restaurants which grow their own ingredients in the back garden.
The Grove, Narbeth
The luxury of this Welsh hotel is matched only by the quality of its food. Head chef Duncan Barham has helped the restaurant win AA Rosettes, Wales Tourism Awards, and a listing in the Good Food Guide 2011, no doubt thanks to the freshness of his ingredients.
The kitchen garden produces over 70 varieties of vegetables, summer fruits, and herbs, which are picked seconds before adding to the pan. Plus the garden team manage the soil at The Grove in Narbeth organically, using composting during the winter months when the vegetable garden is allowed to rest. Over the coming years, The Grove is looking to gain full organic status with the Soil Association.
And apparently, the Grove kitchen garden is a ‘lost’ garden that pre-dates the existing Georgian walled garden; so really, they’re just keeping a 17th century tradition alive. All cottage guests are welcome to pick their own seasonal veg from the garden.
Open for lunch 12-2:30pm, and for dinner 6-9:30pm all week.
The RIBA at 66 Portland Place, London
Leon Secretan is head chef at The RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) at 66 Portland Place restaurant (quite the mouthful); a beautiful art deco building in the heart of the West End on Portland Place.
Leon, who previously worked alongside Adam Robinson and Dan Evans, both of who were sous chefs for Alistair Little, exclusively uses herbs grown from his own herb garden. Fresh mint goes into his pureed mushy peas, and basil for a basil sorbet and pistachio praline for dessert.
Open Monday to Friday, 12-3pm; and Tuesday 6-9pm.
The Wellington Arms, Hampshire
The Wellington Arms, hailed as a “really, really special” pub by food writer Giles Coren, has a beast of a kitchen garden, the booty from which inspires the menu every week. In fact, they even have rare breed Devon and Cornwall Longwool sheeps, and 120 free-range, rare breed and rescue hens, producing eggs for the kitchen and for sale at the bar.
Plus there are Wellington Arms bees for honey, and they grow their own salad leaves in polytunnels all year round. The herbs used for garnish and cooking are grown in the herb garden next to the kitchen door, and they grow courgettes, pumpkins, and root vegetables in three raised beds in the garden. And to top it all off, they even recycle table waste including meat, fish, bones, and dairy products in special green cones dotted around the garden.
Open for lunch from midday all week, and dinner Monday-Saturday from 6:30pm.
The Eastbury, Dorset
Award-winning chef Brett Sutton heads the two AA Rosette restaurant in Sherbourne. He works closely alongside his producers, taking vegetables from ‘Ted and Jane’, pigs from ‘Mike’, and growing his own herb and salad crops. He even keeps two bee hives that produce honey for the morning toast!
As Brett himself told us, “many chefs recognise the value of local sourcing which is great, but I am determined to source absolutely as much as possible close to home and local honey - our own Eastbury honey - seemed to me to be a fantastic option. Loads of our produce now comes from Sherborne or within just a few miles, but wherever possible I like to actually grow and produce our own food." Open for lunch Monday to Friday from 12-2pm, and dinner all week from 7-9:30pm.
The Herb Garden Café, Jersey
The gardens of Samares Manor are an absolute must if you’re holidaying in Jersey. Created in the 1920s by millionaire shipping magnate and philanthropist Sir James Knott, there’s everything from a Japanese Garden to The Apple Barge, a Hot Garden, and a Rose and Lavender Garden. But by far the most impressive, and most aromatic, is the Herb Garden.
It’s one of the most comprehensive herb gardens in Europe and boasts a collection of culinary herbs so large, that not even the most knowledgeable of cooks could possibly recognise them all. The Herb Garden Café, run by Ian Florence, makes the most of its ample resources, tossing fresh herbs from the garden together to create a range of wonderful garden salads. He specialises in the use of local Jersey produce, and his dishes are always flavoured and garnished with freshly cut herbs from the garden.
Open every day 9:30am-5pm.
You might also like
Garden, patio or window box, we'll show you how to grow
Comments
Be the first to comment
Do you want to comment on this article? You need to be signed in for this feature