Head Chef, Peace Glory
Our kitchen does not decide what to cook until the morning harvest is in. Here is how that actually works in practice.
Most restaurant kitchens work backwards from a fixed menu: decide the dishes, then order what they require. We work forwards from whatever the farm hands over at seven in the morning, which is a considerably less comfortable way to run a kitchen.
The morning handover
The growers bring in what is genuinely at its best that day — not what is merely available, which is a different and much longer list. Sometimes that is a glut of one thing. Sometimes it is a difficult scatter of small quantities.
- Whatever peaked overnight leads the menu
- Gluts become preserves, ferments and stock for the weeks ahead
- Anything imperfect goes to staff meal, never to waste
- Trimmings and peelings return to the compost windrows the same day
The discipline this imposes is useful. Cooking becomes a response rather than an execution, and the team has become far better at improvising than they were when a printed menu protected them from having to.
A tomato picked this morning does not need much help. Most of our job is knowing when to stop.
Guests occasionally ask to see a menu in advance and we cannot provide one, which is a genuine inconvenience we accept. What we can promise is that nothing on the plate travelled far, and most of it did not travel at all.
