From garden plot to plate

There had been signs. When someone checked that morning, they thought she looked a little awkward. "Constipated" was the word used. And then, just before lunch, it was all over. There, in a backyard box at Sydney's Three Blue Ducks restaurant and cafe, outside the kitchen where chef Darren Robertson had been mixing his chicken brine, was their first restaurant-laid hen's egg.

Rarely has an unfertilised egg been celebrated with such joy as it was by staff, friends and family that afternoon. There were photographs and phone calls, and children were brought in to gaze upon the creation.

"It was a pretty big thing," says Robertson when we speak that afternoon.

There are five former rent-a-chooks in the small yard at the back of the restaurant dubbed "Tetsuya's by the sea" in a reference to Robertson and fellow chef Mark LaBrooy's experience in that famous establishment's kitchen. Clearly the poultry's productive capacity is not intended to meet the demands of the popular breakfast destination, but their fertilising skills are working a treat. They share the garden with what Robertson calls "all the usual suspects - finger limes, lemongrass, chillies, herbs" and even a couple of runt yabbies in a pond, recently rescued from an undersized kitchen delivery.

LaBrooy's brother Grant does the gardening, using permaculture techniques to grow organic produce in the yard and in an upstairs greenhouse. Everything that's grown appears on the menu.

Their backyard is one of a growing number of new onsite-or-close-enough urban restaurant gardens, some of them belonging to the country's most applauded venues. They're part of a back-to-basics, plot-to-plate movement that is seeing some of our best young chefs discovering the joy of getting their hands dirty. The trend is an extension of a tradition that reaches back to Alla Wolf-Tasker's Lake House in Daylesford, Victoria, in the late 1970s, when she started cooking with produce picked from her garden.

But gardens are only the beginning; others are keeping bees, grinding wheat and even asking diners to BYO produce.

Melbourne's Attica has long been famous for chef Ben Shewry's fondness for foraging in neighbourhood laneways, but the restaurant recently began leasing a 150sq m plot in the grounds of nearby Ripponlea Estate for growing vegetables and herbs. Staff help to maintain the plot. Last month they cracked open their first batch of cider brewed from the estate's exotic apple orchard with the help of The Australian's wine writer and cider enthusiast Max Allen.

At Perth's Greenhouse, Matt Stone is grinding his own wheat to order, not to mention making yoghurt and butter, and milling oats for the morning's porridge.

Not far from Three Blue Ducks, the 150sq m garden at Matt Moran's Chiswick has become a centrepiece, and its yield of purple basil floats in the restaurant's martinis. Moran, who has long sourced beef and lamb from his father's farm, says the facility increases awareness of the seasons. "It's good for everyone to realise that you don't get tomatoes in Sydney 12 months of the year."

Everyone benefits: diners are rewarded with the freshest ingredients, such as nasturtiums picked moments before the plate arrives at the table, and chefs can waste less, cut costs and grow what they want.

James Parry, chef and co-owner with Dan Puskas of hot new restaurant Sixpenny in Sydney's inner-west, says he did the routine forced-labour shifts in his parents' garden as a child, but really didn't know where anything came from when he started to cook. "When you start to grow (things) you understand the importance of it and how challenging it all is. When you get something to work, it just makes it that much more special."

It's not all the good life, however, and there are hiccups. A recent soybean crop planted by Parry failed when autumn arrived sooner than expected. "I ended up with a whole lot of green manure."

Parry and Puskas, who are respectively the gardener and the harvester, have a 300sq m plot on Parry's in-laws' farm in the NSW southern highlands. Parry drives up three times a week and occasionally dragoons the rest of the kitchen to join him for a Monday weeding session.

Even at Sixpenny, the herbs and vegetables they grow - broad beans, snow peas and sugar snaps right now - comprise only a small proportion of what is served to diners. And there's never going to be enough fruit, veg or even herbs to satisfy demand on an inner-city block. But with a little careful planning - growing most of what's used least - it's possible to make what's available have a pleasingly disproportionate effect on what appears on diners' plates.

Others have more challenging space issues, requiring lateral thinking. James Hird, co-owner of trattoria Buzo and bar The Wine Library in Sydney's Woollahra, says he had always wanted to be self-sufficient in something but was hamstrung by the lack of space. Then he realised there was another option - one being embraced by several restaurants across Australia, including Ladro in Melbourne. Beehives. So now, on a veranda overlooking Oxford Street, Hird has close to 100,000 bees that in the past 11 months have produced 60kg of honey, which is used in desserts, drinks and on crumpets for breakfast.

"You talk about terroir with wine, but honey is the most terroir-influenced thing you can taste," he says. "It's been really interesting for us and for the chefs to see the seasons in the honey and the differences. It has the signature of the suburb.

"We use it pretty sparingly, as they work pretty hard to make it," he adds. "But it's on the menu at both venues all the time."

Hird has gone even further in his enthusiasm for using local produce - he's begun to take advantage of his customers' gardens.

"There are lots of small gardens in the neighbourhood," he says. "We're trying to get people to bring in stuff that's growing in the neighbourhood, and we give them something in return."

Six regulars now routinely bring in their citrus and herbs, and Hird is talking about tapping into the farms belonging to a couple of well-heeled customers. He is aiming for self-sufficiency in herbs in a year's time.

Back at Three Blue Ducks, they've been thinking in a similar way. In March, the first Grow it Local feast was held at the restaurant, in which local gardeners brought in their harvest and the chefs took over from there.

They had an overwhelming response, with 150 to 200 green-thumbed participants, as well as a fisherman who contributed his Bondi Beach catch of the day. To his credit, LaBrooy was able to use nearly everything.

Robertson says the desire to know more about what we eat is shared by many chefs.

"Maybe it's a bit fashionable, but it's one trend (that) I think will stick around. I really do," he says.

And what happened to that chook-warm egg in the happy hands of a couple of our most innovative chefs? It was instagrammed, tweeted and finally fried and shared between four.

Source: The Australian, 7 July 2012