The UK's best farm-to-fork restaurants

Whether growing their own in kitchen gardens, cooking on farms or collaborating closely with market gardens, more and more chefs are not just sourcing locally but seeking greater control of their produce, its cultivation and quality. They work in symbiosis with nature to use seasonal ingredients at their freshly harvested peak.

The UK's best farm-to-fork restaurants that are leading the way

The Abbey Inn, Byland

Tommy Banks’ latest pub further expands a North Yorkshire ecosystem that, at his Michelin-starred restaurants, The Black Swan and Roots, has seen the chef forge a distinctive form of sustainable British cooking. At his family farm in Oldstead, teams of growers, foragers and chefs are at work cultivating, preserving and fermenting often neglected produce into delicious, waste-minimal ingredients. These underpin the creativity of Tommy’s restaurant teams. The Abbey Inn, for example, a bucolic, 19th-century inn, is serving chipolatas with Japanese knotweed jam (similar to rhubarb, apparently) and beef tartare with fermented peppers, nasturtium and bone marrow. Native and rare-bread meats are increasingly prominent in the farm’s work, as featured in The Abbey’s Dexter beef burger or use of its own Herdwicks in plates of hogget rump with glazed faggot, fermented turnip and pommes anna. Mains from £21; abbeyinnbyland.co.uk

Wilsons, Bristol

From an onion custard with smoked eel, pickled onion and onion broth, to ice cream made from September’s new, sweet celeriacs (served with buckwheat and truffle-fermented honey), chef Jan Ostle’s six-course dinner menu is intimately inspired by the produce emerging from the restaurant’s Barrow Gurney garden. Run by head grower, Anna Barrett, and Jan’s partner, Mary Wilson, who trained in biodynamic agriculture as a student, the 2.5-acre plot is farmed using regenerative techniques and is a precious resource for this ambitious Redland bistro. “When you see how much time and energy goes into growing, it changes the way you perceive and treat ingredients,” says Jan. “Everything becomes something to look forward to, from potatoes to the last tomatoes.” Dinner £68pp; wilsonsbristol.co.uk

Chalk, Sussex

At winemaker Wiston’s estate, all aspects of the business (restaurant, vineyard, walled garden) work in mutually reinforcing synergy. For example, food waste and spent grapes are turned into compost, while the salt for Chalk restaurant is smoked in old wine barrels. Chef Tom Kemble sources nearly 70 per cent of his ingredients from Sussex, and almost half of that total from Wiston Estate itself – anything from quince to White Park beef. This September, you might see Wiston’s spiced, honey-glazed Hokkaido pumpkins and leaves served with burrata, or its jerusalem artichokes turned into a soup with bay cream, focaccia croutons and smoked ham. Mains from £19; wistonestate.com

View our full list of UK vineyard stays here.

Heckfield Place, Hampshire

A stylish synthesis of ancient and modern, Heckfield was once a Georgian country house, now luxury hotel, where sustainability is foremost. Led by culinary director Skye Gyngell and executive chef Michael Chapman, its green Michelin-star restaurant, Marle, uses produce from Heckfield’s organic farm, which includes Guernsey cows, hens and sheep, Heckfield’s biodynamic market garden and harvest from Skye’s long-term inspiration, Fern Verrow biodynamic farm. Ingredients are showcased with an elegant, Italian-influenced simplicity in, say, a layered crab salad of late summer vegetables, or ricotta and roast squash filled scarpinocc pasta in marjoram butter. Mains from £29; heckfieldplace.com

The Newt, Bruton

Famously, The Newt is a cider-maker. But the commitment of this stylish hotel, gardens, farm and all-round food hub to growing goes way beyond the 70 varieties of apples in its orchards. Covering 1,000 acres, The Newt variously rears cattle (grass-fed British Whites), manages multiple market gardens and a new hydroponic glasshouse (cultivating anything from revered Tropea onions to Padrón peppers), and staff also forage in its hedgerows and woodlands. Found within the site’s Grade II listed Georgian manor house, Hadspen, the Botanical Rooms restaurant and conservatory terrace is where chef Matt Heeley makes deft use of estate produce in dishes such as glasshouse tomatoes, goat’s curd and basil on sourdough; beef tartare, burnt corn and jalapeño dressing; or lamb, artichoke, confit garlic and mint. Dinner £85pp; thenewtinsomerset.com

Pine, Northumberland

Farming is in Cal Byerley’s DNA (his family have worked the neighbouring land since 1805) and, with fellow head chef, Ian Waller, he manages more than an acre of growing tunnels, raised beds and a small orchard at their Michelin-starred restaurant. A colony of honey-producing bees help with pollination. Pine’s no-dig garden (compost and plant waste is left to breakdown naturally, enriching the soil) underpins exquisite tasting menu creations including a custard of local, gouda-like Berwick Edge cheese with smoked, aged carrots and horseradish leaf jelly or a jerusalem artichoke cone of ice cream, infused with dried, roasted parsley root. £145pp; restaurantpine.co.uk

Where the Light Gets In, Stockport

Chef-owner Sam Buckley wants WTLGI to be a unique expression of sustainable, seasonal British food. No more so than in The Landing. Located atop Stockport’s 1960s Merseyway shopping centre, this sun-trap kitchen garden has become a fertile source of anything from figs to Andean tubers. WTLGI’s continually changing Landing Plate (maybe a vibrant salad or a chronological selection of preserved vegetables) platforms this produce. But its presence is felt throughout the menu, from wild strawberries with a seasonal parfait to herbs garnishing a pork ragu. Open to the public, both informally and through horticultural and creative workshops, the Landing is a special project. Dinner £110pp; wtlgi.co

Horrell & Horrell, Bruton, Somerset

This new micro-dining experience sees the eponymous Horrells, chef Steve and host Jules, welcome 20 people to a communal dinner in an open-fronted barn at their home. Using produce from their 6.5-acre smallholding (fruits and nuts, myriad vegetables, even home-reared lamb) and select regional, artisan suppliers (Chapel Cross goat’s cheese; Buffalicious mozzarella; Brown & Forrest smokery), Steve creates a seasonal, four-course menu in his bespoke outdoor kitchen. A southern European influence is clear in dishes such as artichoke fritti, basil mayonnaise and parmesan, or rosemary and garlic lamb, cime di rapa, chilli and pangrattato. £45pp, BYO alcohol; horrellandhorrell.co.uk

Pasture, Cardiff and Bristol

Chef-owner Sam Elliott’s steak restaurants serve pasture-reared beef from the South West, cooked over sustainable charcoal. The restaurants also, in dishes of ash-baked beetroot with blackberry jelly, ajo blanco and dill oil or coal-roasted hispi cabbage, aïoli and romesco, utilise produce from their own 3.5-acre, no-dig market garden. Managed by grower Tom McPugh, Sam created Bristol’s Buttercliffe Farm to further populate Pasture’s menus with ingredients grown in a sustainable, regenerative environment. With 3,500 vines planted, Pasture hopes to eventually make its own wine, too. Mains from £15.95; pasturerestaurant.com

Carters of Moseley, Worcestershire

Running until late September, Brad Carter’s super-inventive, Michelin-starred restaurant has temporarily relocated to key supplier, grower Westlands UK. This summer glasshouse pop-up will see Brad using the surrounding produce, from heritage tomatoes to courgette flowers, across a nine-course menu, ranging from snacks of fresh cheese and nasturtium, via servings of ex-dairy beef to a dessert of grilled strawberries and woodruff. “Expect edible flowers, herbs and plants harvested within minutes of eating them,” says Brad, delivering “optimum” flavour. £75pp; cartersofmoseley.co.uk