With an increasing demand for more sustainably-sourced, organically grown produce, more and more hotels and restaurants are providing guests with produce grown in their own kitchen gardens. And there’s something undoubtedly wonderful about eating food that you know was grown just metres away from your table. Here we find out more about a few of the fabulous kitchen gardens in the West Country.

THE ETHICUREAN
Wrington, near Bristol
The Ethicurean has garnered a national acclaim and numerous accolades for its ethical food philosophy.
All of the vegetables on the menu are grown on the 7-acre site which includes orchards and the one-acre walled garden. The gardens are tended by head gardener Mark Cox with the help of just three or four part-time helpers.
WHAT’S ON THE MENU?
BEETROOT DISH
Beetroot is never far from a seasonal British restaurant menu. Sweet, earthy and hardy enough for anything our climate can throw
at it; the chefs at The Ethicurean love finding new ways to celebrate it. It’s the centrepiece of a recent starter with roasted pieces dressed in blackcurrant wood oil, elderflower candied beets, and pickled beetroot paired with crab apple leather, dusted in Alexanders’ powder and finished with a smoked buttermilk sauce.
SQUASH, ROSEMARY AND WASTE MILK
Some ingredients are stored at times of abundance, never knowing when they will make an appearance. Fermented squash has an amazing tropical fruit flavour so when Mark the gardener brought in the last of
the year’s gourds there was always a plan to use them later. Fermented squash purée sits on a rosemary sponge with sea buckthorn
gel. Accompanied by waste milk ice cream, caramelised pumpkin seeds and a burnt sugar caramel. All topped off with a custard infused with a little more of the squash purée.

THE LOST GARDENS OF HELIGAN
Pentewan, near St Austell, Cornwall
Thirty years ago, Heligan’s historic gardens were unknown and unseen; lost to the brambles of time since the outbreak of World War One. It was only the chance discovery of a door in the ruins that led to the restoration of this once great estate. Chef Nat Tallents (as seen on Great British Menu) heads up the estate restaurant, which has garnered a fabulous reputation in its own right.
The Heligan Kitchen Garden is almost 200 years old and is on a plot of 1.8 acres. The Productive Gardens consisting of The Kitchen Garden, Melon Yard and Flower Garden have a combined plot of 3 acres.
There are nine gardeners that tend to the Productive Gardens with the Head Gardener being Nicola Bradley who has been at Heligan Gardens for 15 years. More than 500 varieties of fruit, vegetables, and flowers are grown in the gardens at Heligan. Some favourites are:
Peas ‘Veitch’s Western Express’
Early season and are very fresh and green. These are delicious right from the pod and are one of the many old varieties of produce at Heligan. They and can grow up to 6 feet tall.
Runner Bean ‘Prizewinner’
Delicious and fresh.
Peaches ‘Peregrine’
Best enjoyed fresh off the tree in midsummer. They have a white flesh, are very juicy and provide wonderful fresh fruity smells in the Peach House.
Gardener’s top tips
Grow what you would like to eat and don’t be intimidated.
No matter how small the space, crop rotate to prevent diseases.
Try new things. Eg. Go to local seed swaps for variety and any gardening advice.
For anyone which has limited space; use small pots for baby vegetables (Radishes work great as a quick harvest), small salad leaves that can be picked to add freshness to a dish, small pots of herbs as they can last all through the season.
What’s on the menu?
Ocra, leeks salsify, broad bean leaves and walnuts. Everything within this dish, except walnuts, has been grown at Heligan.
Pea and broad bean pizza base with ricotta topping.
Beetroot used for many different recipes eg. houmous, beetroot soup.

ST ENDOC HOTEL
Rock, Cornwall
St Enodoc has a commitment to using local produce, and a lot of that is home grown. As well as a kitchen garden at the hotel, they also have a family farm — Made-Well — close by which not only supplies the kitchens but also supports people with learning disabilities.
Head gardener Lynsey looks after the gardens at the hotel, growing micro veg for the fine dining restaurant, more than 12 different types of herbs, citrus trees and fruit cages with red gooseberries, currants, golden raspberries and a variety of strawberries.
Owner James Strachan says, “We try and grow in different areas of the gardens which is probably over two acres. It has been very much a trial and error process which Guy Owen — our head chef has been heavily involved in to see whether certain things can be grown. If it works then we try to do it on a bigger scale at the farm. At the moment we are looking at a few more unusual things to grow from kaffir lime leaves to white strawberries.”
What’s on the menu?
Head chef Guy Owen says, “In Karrek (our fine dining restaurant), we are doing chicken, asparagus and onion. The asparagus crowns went in two years ago in our grounds, so we are just seeing the first spears. We use spring onion, grown in our beds, which we are chargrilling, also we are growing chives for their flowers and using those as a raw product to garnish the dish. We also serve a stuffed chicken wing on the side, which
we cook using lemon thyme and a herb called summer savoury, again both from the garden. We present the stuffed and roasted chicken wing on top of some lemon thyme and summer savoury that’s collected from our grounds.”

HOMEWOOD
Near Bath
The stunning country house hotel just outside Bath has big, beautiful sprawling grounds — just perfect for growing fresh produce for the kitchen.
Around one-third of an acre is currently dedicated to food production at Homewood, and there’s plenty of room for expansion. Head gardener is Stephen Hargreaves, but it’s chef-gardener Darren Stephens who does most of the ground work in the kitchen garden — sowing, harvesting and cooking everything himself.
He said: “We grow many different crops suited to our climate with a mix
of different varieties within each crop. I try to source heritage seeds that produce fruit or vegetables with a focus on flavour rather than shelf life or disease resistance. Crops that are most popular with the kitchen are our
new potatoes, salad leaves, heritage tomatoes, beetroots, micro salads, and strawberries. I’m also trialling cucamelons, lemongrass and sweet peppers for a first time this year.”
Gardener’s top tip
I follow the No-dig method when creating Homewood’s kitchen garden beds. It’s an easy way to start a veg patch, especially on a small scale and
if you continue with the method, it’s more beneficial for your soil than digging it up. When it comes to the growing, choose something you want to eat and read up about how much space you will need. Some varieties can dominate a small patch.
What’s on the menu?
“Our BBQ dining domes menu currently features fresh in season pointed spring cabbage baked with dukkah and smoked paprika sauce alongside their no-dig leaves which are an ever-changing selection of dressed leaves picked throughout the year. Their menu also ends with a sharing Eton mess with their own strawberries picked a short distance from where the guests dine.”

THE PIG
Image: Jake Eastham
Using local, sustainable food has always been a key part of the ethos of The PIG restaurants with rooms, with their menus all based around food that can be sourced from within 25-miles of the kitchens. And every PIG has its own kitchen garden too and guests are encouraged to walk around them and see the produce growing before it lands on the plates. There are eight PIGs around the country, with four in the West Country — The PIG near Bath, The PIG at Combe, The PIG at Harlyn Bay and The PIG on the Beach.
The kitchen gardens vary in size and every garden has three full-time kitchen gardeners, with group head gardener Ollie Hutson overseeing them all.
He says: “We grow everything! Each garden might have 500 varieties of fruit, vegetables and herbs. We are always trying to find new and interesting varieties so that we keep the kitchen gardens interesting but all the classics are also grown throughout the year. Unusual veg and herbs include dazzling blue Cavallo nero, chioggia beetroot, Oyster plant, green ginger rosemary and hot and spicy oregano. Fruit-wise there are Japanese wineberries or Chilean guava. Every dish across every Pig has something from the kitchen garden. Even if it’s a flower garnish or small herb, something from the garden touches every plate that goes out.”
Gardener’s top tip
“If you’re starting your own kitchen garden at home herbs are a great way to cut your teeth. You can grow them with very little space, in pots or growbags, and keep cutting and coming back
all season. A good trick for planting seeds is to cut a loo roll tube into 5cm sections, place in a tray and fill each one with compost — instant modules. Many herbs can be sown in April and kept in a sheltered spot to protect from frost, or even inside the house. Plant out or pot up seedlings in May, either into a bed or large pot. Basil, rosemary, mint, coriander, lemon verbena, winter savoury — all pretty easy to grow and add great flavour to any dish.”
What’s on the menu?
Every PIG has a different menu, but you can expect dishes like Florence Fennel Soup with Bath Harvest Rapeseed Oil and Sourdough Croutons, Garden Kohlrabi and Sweet Apple Brown Butter Sage and Toasted Hazelnuts, Homemade Ricotta & Wild Garlic Gnocchi Winterbor Kale, Berry Hill Purple Sprouting Broccoli Beetroot Pearl Barley & Roast Shallot or Pot Roast Celeriac Garden Kale & Diane Sauce.