Eat local and clean at this award-winning Hunter Valley restaurant
The eat local and eat clean revolution has been rolling around the restaurant scene for some time now with many embracing the onsite kitchen garden concept. Whilst this concept is fantastic for the environment, and diners themselves, the practicalities of these kitchen gardens are way beyond most inner city restaurants, and after visiting Margan Restaurant in the Broke Fordwich area of the Hunter Valley, you’ll understand what I mean.
Owners Lisa and Andrew Margan have unintentionally become the pin-up stars for the eat local, eat clean revolution with their one acre onsite Kitchen Garden winning praises from those hard to impress food critics and fellow restaurateurs, way before it was all cool and hipster.
The first seeds in the Garden were planted some eight years ago when Lisa and Andrew decided they needed an extension to the already successful and established Margan cellar door. With Lisa’s extensive knowledge and experience in the food and hospitality industry, in particular, organics it was a natural fit to introduce a restaurant that could almost be fully sustained by an onsite Kitchen Garden.
The Kitchen Garden isn’t where it ends, Lisa has introduced free range chickens, Black Suffolk lambs, bee hives, for fresh unfiltered honey, and olive groves for table olives. They are really taking their ‘Estate Grown and Estate Made’ ethos seriously. What can’t be grown or reared on the property is sourced from local producers like Rod at Krinklewood and his happy little pigs.
Ask Lisa if you can take a wander through the garden, group tours can also be arranged, and it’s only then do you get an understanding of the effort, time and costs that go into feeding us hungry city folk. As Lisa explained the decision to introduce a Kitchen Garden wasn't taken lightly with Andrew and Lisa fully aware of the costs required to keep the garden operational all year round. The results of this hard work are, however, extraordinary with the fresh flavours of the Margan menu inspired by the seasons.
For those that are not so fussed about where their food comes from, or where it’s grown, then all you need to do is sit back and soak up the spectacular country setting that surrounds Margan and experience a truly five-star dining experience.
