Up the road at dawn: sourcing from the farms
Sixty percent of what lands on your plate this week was still in the ground on Tuesday. A morning with our growers.
Up the road at dawn: sourcing in the farm
We leave at 5:30am. By the time the city is waking up, we have already loaded the van with three varieties of greens, a crate of baby courgettes, and whatever the farm surplus is that week — the kind of thing that never makes it onto a restaurant menu because there is not enough of it.
the farm is twenty minutes north of town on a good morning. The road climbs gently past temples and orchards, and the air is noticeably cooler by the time you reach the first farm gate. We work with three families up here. None of them describe themselves as organic, but none of them use chemicals either — it is just how they have always farmed.
The deal is simple: we take what is ready, pay a fair price on the spot, and do not ask for consistency. That is the agreement that makes the produce exceptional. When something is not perfect we leave it. When something is extraordinary — a tray of heritage tomatoes that ripened overnight, a glut of lemongrass so fragrant it changes the whole van — we call the kitchen from the road.
That call is how the menu gets made.