Not too long ago, restaurants proudly displayed where their food and drink came from – right down to the farm in Washington, the ranch in Texas or the vineyard in California.
Now, that focus has shifted closer to home. Much closer.
Welcome to the world of hyper-local restaurants – those planting and tending their own gardens, creating in-house items and even crafting their own brews. The concept, quickly becoming rooted in the American dining landscape, has not only changed the way we eat but the way we feel about the food on our plates.
This extension of the locavore movement – diets based on food grown or cultivated within 100 miles – even made the National Restaurant Association’s 2019 Hot Trends Top 10 List. And South Florida is plenty happy to dish it out.
Brooke Mallory – chef de cuisine at The Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale’s Burlock Coast, a farm-to-table restaurant with a focus on local seafood – has high hopes for the hyper-local trend.
“I absolutely think this trend will continue to grow and become a part of the industry’s culture,” she says. “It benefits restaurants because customers are aware now more than ever of the food they consume. We get asked where our food is produced constantly. You as a restaurant must be prepared to answer the customer with accurate information.”
In Boca Raton, the “conscious, healthy and clean eating philosophies” at Farmer’s Table have been taken to a new level. Its nine-bed garden, bursting with fresh herbs and greens, is tended by Jason McCobb, aka Farmer Jay, a local expert in sustainable agriculture and urban gardening.
The lush plot sparks Culinary Director and Chef Michael Schenk’s creativity in the summer, when he harvests unusual edibles. Young amaranth leaves and roselle, a kind of hibiscus, are “fantastic for salads, and herbs like fragrant lemon basil are good in all sorts of dishes and for making vinaigrettes,” he says.
But the cooler months of the year yield the best pickings, says Chef Schenk: “We benefit most from our garden during the winter season. That’s my best time.”
The winter harvest includes arugula, romaine, baby bibb lettuce and other greens that comprise the Chef’s Garden, a plant-based dish created daily.
“There’s a lot going on despite the small size of the garden,” says Chef Schenk. “We don’t put anything on the garden at all. It’s absolutely natural.”
The natural emphasis extends to every crevice of the eatery, including hot teas crafted by an onsite tea master, mozzarella cheese made fresh and stretched twice daily, and bar mixers created in-house with fresh juice and organic syrup.
For Ghee Indian Kitchen in Miami, the day’s menu depends on the harvest from Chef Niven Patel’s 2-acre Rancho Patel farm in Homestead. Chef Patel, a farmer, a classically trained chef and a 2018 James Beard Award finalist, opened the restaurant with his wife, Shivani Patel, in Dadeland in 2017 and then added a second location in the Miami Design District.
Florida’s tropical climate and growing season are optimal for cultivating the vegetables, herbs, aromatics and fruits integral to the Indian cuisine of Patel’s heritage. The fresh produce inspires the Florida-raised chef’s authentic Gujarati fare “delivered with a modern twist.”
“Sustainability requires local agriculture,” say Rancho Patel farmers Brendan and Laura Sutton on Ghee Indian Kitchen’s website. “Ghee is helping to rebuild the farming community, and we are so proud to be participating in this movement.”
Being able to serve local ingredients is as important as how the food tastes.
“As a chef, I think it is part of our job to be sustainable,” explains Chef Mallory of Burlock Coast. “Growing up, we always had a garden, we had chickens, and my dad went hunting and fishing. So it is just a part of my life. I translated that into the restaurant world.”
At Lucca, the modern Tuscan-style restaurant at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, Executive Chef Adam Pile handpicks fresh herbs, such as rosemary and basil, from his micro-garden, located outside the restaurant. With a menu rotating four times a year, Chef Pile creates dishes using ingredients carefully selected by local and Italian purveyors, fish caught within just a few miles of the resort and fresh pasta made in-house.
Gardens are also flourishing in Palm Beach at The Breakers and The Colony Hotel. The former cultivates a variety of herbs, lettuces and edible flowers on a year-round basis for use in the oceanfront resort’s nine restaurants. The garden is a collaboration between The Breakers’ chefs, landscaping team and procurement staff, using knowledge of best practices in sustainability. The harvest of edible and aromatic plants is grown 100 percent organically.
At the resort’s HMF, the restaurant named after founder Henry Morrison Flagler, Executive Chef Anthony Sicignano garnishes nearly every dish with garden-grown florals and herbs, including the Wood-Roasted Chilean Sea Bass.
Executive Chef Tom Whitaker at The Colony Hotel’s CPB restaurant offers a refined contemporary-American dining experience using the hotel’s large herb garden as a resource for ingredients in soups, sauces, butters and cocktail garnishes.
No part of the basil plant is wasted in CPB’s Seared Halibut. The leaves are used for basil oil and chiffonade, while the stems are crushed to finish the cream sauce.
“I take inspiration from the restaurant itself and the surrounding areas, tapping into Florida flavors and ingredients,” says Chef Whitaker on The Colony website.
Although most restaurants can’t sustain an entire menu with made-in-house ingredients, they’re supplementing with items grown locally and serving components – including sides, sauces, marinades and garnishes – made with hyper-local ingredients.
That’s the case at The Cooper Restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens, under the helm of Executive Chef Adam Brown. Its Farmhouse Salad uses tomatoes from Farmhouse Tomatoes in Lake Worth and arugula and radishes from Kai-Kai Farm in Indiantown. The restaurant boasts that “every single menu item is made in the company’s scratch kitchen and incorporates peak-of-season ingredients,” according to its website.
In any case, this trend is a recipe for good health – and good eating. O