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Kitchen Garden Experts: Twenty Celebrated Chefs and their Head Gardeners
Kitchen Garden Experts features the chefs and gardeners at twenty of the UK’s most exciting restaurants, hotels, pubs and cafes, focussing on how they produce the best fruit and vegetables to appear on their menus. With this book you Twenty featured chefs Raymond Blanc & Anne-Marie Owens at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons , Gill Meller at River Cottage Sir Terence Conran at Barton Court, Simon Rogan at L’Enclume, Tom Lewis at Monachyle Mhor, Jack Stein at Padstow Kitchen Garden , Ruthie Rogers at River Café, Skye Gyngell at Heckfield Place.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 1, 2014
If you’ve ever wanted to sneak a peek into the kitchen gardens of famous chefs, then Kitchen Garden Experts by Cinead McTernan, with photographs by Jason Ingram, will be a must-have book for you. Published by Frances Lincoln at the beginning of May, it takes us on a tour of twenty kitchen gardens in the UK that supply produce to famous chefs. For each site we get introduced to both the chef and the head gardener, and are treated to a selection of recipes for using homegrown produce in a very up-market way.
We’re told that, at The Grove in Pembrokeshire, Head gardener David Butt “likes to grow unusual crops that are generally unavailable or expensive”. David has a pink variety of oca, a tuberous vegetable originally from the Andes that allows chef Duncan Barham to add novelty to the menu. David and Duncan don’t think of their vegetable garden as a way to cut their food bills, but as the “very best way to ensure provenance” – a philosophy that will resonate with many home growers.
The citrus flavour of oca is also appreciated at River Cottage, where the leaves are used as a leafy salad vegetable or a garnish, in addition to the tubers.
At The Ethicurean in Somerset, grower Mark Cox shares my love of experimenting, and gives the chefs an intriguing array of crops. He includes quinoa and achocha, and loves electric daisies (or alien eyeballs!) – although the book notes the Ethicurean’s customers have yet to share his enthusiasm for this tongue-tingling flower!
A L’Enclume (Cumbria) staple dish involves a perennial crop that will be familiar to permaculturalists – Good King Henry. It sometimes gets bad press as one of those old-fashioned plants that was “forgotten for a reason”, but at L’Enclume it is a key ingredient of a signature duck dish. The restaurant also grows its own oyster plant, “an indigenous sea vegetable from the west coast of Scotland” that previously had to be sourced from a grower in the Netherlands.
A willingness to seek out and try new ingredients is a theme throughout the book, but the main focus is on more familiar crops. There are growing instructions for plants such as baby beetroot, rhubarb and radishes, courgettes, tomatoes and turnips. A plant has to be deemed delicious to be worthy of inclusion in these gardens; the section on Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons talks about their signature microgreens and courgette flowers.
Most of us won’t get the chance to visit these places in person, and to nose around the gardens. But Ingram’s photos bring the book to life, and make it the next best thing to being there. The only problem being that you have to cook the food yourself!
We’re told that, at The Grove in Pembrokeshire, Head gardener David Butt “likes to grow unusual crops that are generally unavailable or expensive”. David has a pink variety of oca, a tuberous vegetable originally from the Andes that allows chef Duncan Barham to add novelty to the menu. David and Duncan don’t think of their vegetable garden as a way to cut their food bills, but as the “very best way to ensure provenance” – a philosophy that will resonate with many home growers.
The citrus flavour of oca is also appreciated at River Cottage, where the leaves are used as a leafy salad vegetable or a garnish, in addition to the tubers.
At The Ethicurean in Somerset, grower Mark Cox shares my love of experimenting, and gives the chefs an intriguing array of crops. He includes quinoa and achocha, and loves electric daisies (or alien eyeballs!) – although the book notes the Ethicurean’s customers have yet to share his enthusiasm for this tongue-tingling flower!
A L’Enclume (Cumbria) staple dish involves a perennial crop that will be familiar to permaculturalists – Good King Henry. It sometimes gets bad press as one of those old-fashioned plants that was “forgotten for a reason”, but at L’Enclume it is a key ingredient of a signature duck dish. The restaurant also grows its own oyster plant, “an indigenous sea vegetable from the west coast of Scotland” that previously had to be sourced from a grower in the Netherlands.
A willingness to seek out and try new ingredients is a theme throughout the book, but the main focus is on more familiar crops. There are growing instructions for plants such as baby beetroot, rhubarb and radishes, courgettes, tomatoes and turnips. A plant has to be deemed delicious to be worthy of inclusion in these gardens; the section on Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons talks about their signature microgreens and courgette flowers.
Most of us won’t get the chance to visit these places in person, and to nose around the gardens. But Ingram’s photos bring the book to life, and make it the next best thing to being there. The only problem being that you have to cook the food yourself!
September 9, 2014
I don't really have a great space for gardening, but I like to try. I have been doing some container gardening this year, and love cooking with fresh produce that I have grown myself, so this book interested me very much. Twenty celebrated chefs and their head gardeners share information, tips and recipes.
There is good information throughout the book from each chef/gardener combo's "Kitchen Garden Secrets" to crop calendars, how to make your own garlic spray for pests and so much more. This book is set in the England, so you have to take that into account when using the information. Some of it may not be entirely accurate for whatever zone you're in, but there's still plenty of good information in it. I really enjoyed reading it and gleaning usable tidbits.
The recipes are a mixed bag. There are simple recipes such as Ratatouille, Lees Vinaigrette, Plum and Almond Flan (you HAVE to try this!) and the amazingly simple Fig, Mozzarella and Basil Salad as well as the pretentious Citrus-Vanilla-Cured Vinegar Trout (I'm sorry, but I couldn't even bring myself to try to make this it sounded so bad!), Whitby Lobster with Quail Eggs and Garden Beans and Gray Mullet, Broccolini & Pickled Nasturtium Seeds. Really?!? Pickled nasturtium seeds? I'm sure there are people who love that sort of thing, and if you are one of them, I highly recommend this book to you as it's filled with that sort of thing. This book is great for people who want some good gardening information with some recipes thrown in. For people who love food and love to cook but aren't trying to make grandiose, extravagant dishes to impress someone, this might not be the book for you.
I received a copy of this book from Quartos Publishing Group for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
There is good information throughout the book from each chef/gardener combo's "Kitchen Garden Secrets" to crop calendars, how to make your own garlic spray for pests and so much more. This book is set in the England, so you have to take that into account when using the information. Some of it may not be entirely accurate for whatever zone you're in, but there's still plenty of good information in it. I really enjoyed reading it and gleaning usable tidbits.
The recipes are a mixed bag. There are simple recipes such as Ratatouille, Lees Vinaigrette, Plum and Almond Flan (you HAVE to try this!) and the amazingly simple Fig, Mozzarella and Basil Salad as well as the pretentious Citrus-Vanilla-Cured Vinegar Trout (I'm sorry, but I couldn't even bring myself to try to make this it sounded so bad!), Whitby Lobster with Quail Eggs and Garden Beans and Gray Mullet, Broccolini & Pickled Nasturtium Seeds. Really?!? Pickled nasturtium seeds? I'm sure there are people who love that sort of thing, and if you are one of them, I highly recommend this book to you as it's filled with that sort of thing. This book is great for people who want some good gardening information with some recipes thrown in. For people who love food and love to cook but aren't trying to make grandiose, extravagant dishes to impress someone, this might not be the book for you.
I received a copy of this book from Quartos Publishing Group for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews