7 Must-Try International Garden to Table Restaurants
These Garden to Table restaurants take your palate to an entirely new level of flavor in exciting locales–sometimes whilst rubbing elbows with the chefs themselves!
Fresh. Delicious. Crisp. Bursting with flavor. Imagine starting your dining experience in the garden where the ingredients for your meal are harvested before your eyes!
Here are 7 of the most delicious and stunning Garden-to-Table Restaurant experiences around the globe:
#1 Agriturismo Masseria Cimino – Puglia, Italy
Italy’s Puglia is a region rich in heritage and exciting Mediterranean flavors where Agriturismo Masseria Cimino’s biodynamic farm grows eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and barattieri a local fruit with surprising flavors of cucumber and melon. Guests at Masseria Cimino can feast on fresh local specialties and are invited to tiramisu le machine (roll up their sleeves) and get their hands into the dough to make fresh bread, traditional orecchiette pasta and more.
#2 Anse Chastanet & Jade Mountain – St. Lucia, Caribbean
Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain Resorts on the island of St. Lucia take the concept of organic garden-to-table restaurant to new heights. The lush organic garden has a staring role in your dining experience. Both resorts are stakeholders in Emerald Estates where they select their fresh daily produce. Jade Mountain Resort’s head chef Allen Susser says, “Our farmers are locals who care deeply about what they do. My inspiration for our cooking comes from our flavor-packed tropical fruits, vegetables, greens and spices. We express the soul of St. Lucia in our food.”
For desert, Jade Mountain’s Chocolate Lab will have you at hello. You can make your own signature chocolate from the very beans you collect from their 1000 cocoa trees. Talk about an organic bespoke experience!
#3 Ka’ana Boutique Resort – Belize
Ka’ana’s food and beverage director has my vote. He says, “Fresh produce from an organically managed tropical garden is exciting for both the chef and the guest. With a worldwide growing awareness of local food and culinary tourism on the rise, a visit to the garden provides an authentic experience for guests and a narrative for the food on the plate, allowing delicious seasonal specialties and hard to find ingredients to be picked at their peak only footsteps from the kitchen door. This keeps the carbon footprint low, encourages biodiversity and creates jobs that celebrate and dignify farming and local knowledge.” Amen. And let’s eat!
#4 Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba – Peru’s Sacred Valley
Head chef Rafael Casin waxes poetic about Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba’s ten-acre organic garden saying that “the organic products we grow at Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba are definitely tastier.” Part of your dining experience is picking your own produce such as: quinoa, Urubamba corn, purple corn and even Peruvian medicinal herbs. Traditional harvesting methods using hand tools and oxen are also mindfully practiced to help perserve the Sacred Valley of the Incas.
#5 Isle of Eriska Hotel – Scotland
It’s not often that when you refer to an island and a hotel, you’re talking about the same thing. But that’s the case atIsle of Eriska. Once a historical Scottish Highland baronial manor, the hotel is perched on 300 acres of flat tidal land with seals, otters, badgers, deer and golden eagles ready to make your acquaintance. The restaurant’s Michelin star is just the opening act with a supporting cast of fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruits from the island’s garden. As head chef Ross Stovold says, “Having our own garden helps the team understand the reality of the word: seasonality. When we grow, we have to feed the soil and understand what each seed requires to fulfill its potential… this gives the team a connection to the plates of food that they pass on to our customers.���
#6 Hotel El Convento – San Juan, Puerto Rico
In the stylish Garden-to Palate-Package you can take a champagne infused tour with Executive Chef Luis Castillo through his rooftop garden sprouting delicious herbs and vegetables and then sit down to an amazing meal at the Patio del Nispero restaurant where you’ll dine on locally inspired dishes. It’s not often that you can get chummy with an executive chef. Nor dine in a 360-year-old converted Carmelite convent. One might describe dining at Hotel El Convento as a religious foodie experience.
#7 The Racha, Koh Racha Yai – Phuket, Thailand
All hail to the coconut tree. At Small Luxury Hotels of the World member The Racha, a luxury eco-resort surrounded by the Andaman Sea, they are truly committed to environmental sustainability. All villas were built around the coconut trees to preserve the true nature of the island. Indigenous flora and fauna, green rolling hills, a stable ecosystem and hydroponic gardens all work together to give you “fresh, nutrient-rich and pesticide-free produce”. At this gourmet Sunset Beach Restaurant Italian executive chef Claudio Mendini only uses the freshest – just minutes out of the garden – ingredients for ultimate flavor.
Are you hungry yet?For the most delicious, colorful and nutrient rich ingredients that nature provides?
Then book your seat at one of these amazing garden-to-table restaurants. They’re committed to giving you the culinary adventure of a lifetime while living in harmony with the very soil every ingredient was harvested from.
Related on Organic Authority
Teaching the Art of Farm to Table: Farmer University Opens
Yard to Table: Creating the Ultimate Garden Meal
Forget Farm to Table, This is Rooftop to Table
Photo credits: Ka’ana Resort, La Racha, Hotel El Convento, Dennis Hardley Photography, Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba, Ka’ana Boutique Resort, Anse Chastanet & Jade Mountain, Agriturismo Masseria Cimino
