Restaurants go green to cultivate sustainability

Has a green-fingered memo been sent to the state's most media-minded chefs? If your local restaurant hasn't got its own rustically forward kitchen garden by now, it may well do soon.

Three-hatted est has its own tea plants, frothing with foliage that can be transformed into a tisane at the end of Peter Doyle's seven-course degustation menu. The plants are tended to in a greenhouse on the roof of Justin Hemmes' George Street flagship, The Ivy.

On trend: chefs Daniel Puskas, right, and James Parry grow vegetables near

Over in Woollahra, Chiswick's plot, overseen by Blacktown boy Matt Moran, is harvested daily, marching on to diners' artfully sauce-smeared salt blocks at lunch and dinner.

Stanmore's Sixpenny has a garden on site as well as a fruitful patch in Bowral for Daniel Puskas and James Parry to dip into. In the Hunter Valley, chef George Francisco has created an epic kitchen garden complete with beehive and beekeeper. His diners at exclusive Tower Estate hotel look out over the plot.

Three Blue Ducks in Bronte, with Shannon Debreceny, Darren Robertson and Mark Labrooy, is credited with leading the way with on-site greenery, but below the limelight are a host of sustainably minded eateries across the city, including Marrickville's Cornersmith.

Matt Moran with goat and chickens promoting the upcoming TEDx lunch at the Sydney Opera House.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 2013