Five restaurants that grow their own produce in urban spaces

This newly opened Japanese establishment on top of the shiny reincarnation of Funan mall is adjacent to a sprawling urban garden. With soil-based and hydroponic farming, it grows over 50 varieties of fruits and vegetables such as butterfly pea, mushrooms and microgreens, which are used in many of the salads, mains and cocktails at the restaurant.

Located in KL’s hot and happening Damansara Heights neighbourhood, this fine-dining establishment by chef Jeff Ramsey serves degustations of creative, Japanese-inspired tapas: dishes include a 40-layer chicken skin char siu and black butter cod. Some of the ingredients, such as heirloom okra, shishito peppers and lavender sorrel, are grown on the rooftop garden on the open top floor of the building where Babe is located.

This farm-to-table dining space, located in a gorgeous vine-festooned boutique hotel, uses locally sourced produce to create refined comfort food with pops of Indonesian flavours, such as duck burgers and tempeh steak – accompanied by fresh greens from its rooftop farm, where it cultivates vegetables such as lettuce and spinach.

After a brief closure in 2017, world-renowned Noma, whose chef René Redzepi pretty much kickstarted what became known as “New Nordic” cuisine, returned in 2018 in a beautifully restored warehouse overlooking grasslands and a lake. The restaurant follows its own “seasons” – such as Vegetable and Game & Forest – and many of the ingredients come from the restaurant’s own garden or floating farm. Expect to encounter things like a potted plant with edible soil, edible flowers, mould and snails in a meal.

It might be an hour and a half west of London, but the rural Nut Tree Inn is worth the journey. Its traditional 15th-century, thatch-roof village pub exterior belies the Michelin-starred cuisine found within. British home cooking is elevated into something spectacular thanks to fresh herbs and vegetables harvested from its garden, the pigs and ducks reared on its grounds and a trusted supplier of sustainably reared meats and other goods.

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SEE ALSO: 5 farms in Singapore to escape the urban jungle

A version of this article was originally published in the September 2019 issue of Silkwinds magazine