Your journey from plot to plate: Britain’s starriest chefs have their hands in the soil – and so can you
Top UK restaurants are increasingly growing their own produce to serve to diners. Raymond Blanc’s signature restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, has an abundant organic potager.
The Michelin-starred restaurant at Gravetye Manor in West Sussex, former home of legendary garden writer William Robinson, serves vegetables grown in a Victorian walled garden.
At The Newt in Somerset, the Garden Cafe serves food grown on site from tomatoes to brassicas.
While most of us might not have room for a full-blown kitchen garden, we can still grow our own restaurant-style food at home, even if space is limited.
The key is not to try to grow everything, but unusual herbs and vegetables that will add plenty of flavour but which you can’t buy in supermarkets.
At Restaurant Sat Bains, a two Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms just outside Nottingham, they grow food for the kitchen in a small but fruitful urban oasis.
Guests are even served one of the courses in the chef’s greenhouse, where the best of the produce is showcased.
Head gardener Peter Mallia says: ‘We try to get the most flavour out of the smallest amount of space.’
Top taste: Chef Sat Bains grows wild garlic and six kinds of basil in his restaurant’s garden
A plant he recommends growing for its complex flavour is Perilla frutescens, or the beefsteak plant, a culinary herb used in Asian cooking with crinkled leaves combining hints of mint, basil, cumin, cloves and citrus. You can use the leaves for decoration or add to salads.
Sow seeds under cover now and plant out when frost has passed. You could fit ten plants in a square metre, growing to about 90cm if they are in good soil and get plenty of sunlight.
GREENHOUSE GREENS
In the restaurant garden, they have a working greenhouse where they grow microgreens for salads in trays, such as amaranth, cavolo nero, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, wasabi and radish.
Anything not used while it is tender can be planted out and grown to full size. I have done this at home with young kale plants, potting up as many seedlings as I need for my allotment, then snipping the rest and adding them to salads and stir fries.
Another highlight of the garden is wild garlic used to make pesto grown in tiered planters under a high hedge. Once the bulbs have established, the plants look after themselves and return each year.
When they start to die back, they plant nasturtiums on top, grown for their edible leaves and flowers.
FLORAL FLAVOURS
They grow six kinds of basil including Thai basil, which can be grown from seed, and then planted in a container in a sunny spot. It has a liquorice flavour great for salads or garnishes.
Lemon verbena is best grown from plug plants. These can go in the ground and once established will come back year after year with citrus scented leaves that can be used to infuse ice cream or vinegar.
Anise hyssop has an aniseed flavour. The leaves can be used in salads, while the purple flowers make an attractive garnish.
Rose geraniums can be made into a sorbet or jam for glazing. Dahlia flowers are also edible. Sprinkle the petals over a dish for a fine-dining style finish.
