Bristol restaurant grows their own

Bosses at a Bristol restaurant chain were so determined to ensure the food on diners' plates was as fresh as could be that they decided to grow it themselves.

Owners of the Glass Boat Company, Arne Ringner and Magnus Macdonald, wanted to go a step further when serving up delicious treats at their three restaurants; the Glass Boat, The Lido in Clifton and the Spyglass.

Mr Ringner found a piece of land at a farm in Pill and started growing the vegetables and salads that will appear on customers' plates.

Head gardener Luke Quinn has been employed to take care of the crops and there is one polytunnel full of salad leaves, featuring a number of new varieties brought in from Italy.

Mr Ringner said: "The flavour of new, freshly harvested leaves is remarkably better than the traditional type coming to us through the wholesale chain."

Staff from the restaurant group, which is known for its Mediterranean food, were invited along to the farm on Sunday for a ceremony and barbecue to celebrate the harvest of the first crop of salad leaves.

There are hopes of expanding the range of home-grown vegetables, fruits and salads across the coming months and some winter vegetables have already been planted.

The Glass Boat Company operations director Nathan Lee said: "Recently there has been a real push to control where we get our produce from. We decided that you couldn't get fresher than growing your own and then serving it up at the restaurants.

"Our chefs are really excited about putting food on a plate that we have grown ourselves. They are also pleased that essentially they will have a say in what types of vegetables will be grown and served to customers.

"It's also a great selling point for our customers.

"At the moment we have one polytunnel, but there are plans to expand the range of produce which we grow and we hope to soon be self-sufficient."