Welcome

Eating for the Earth is an initiative that promotes the sourcing of local, seasonal produce. We embrace Sydney’s best farm-to-table restaurants and the growers who grow their food, because eating local is better for the earth, your health and local communities and economies! Each week we will be visiting a local Sydney restaurant, and sharing tips on where to source the best produce. Tomorrow we will be visiting Chiswick at Woollarah, with its own kitchen garden, a light filled dining room and a menu reflecting the season; this place is sure to be something special.

7 Reasons to Eat Local

• Locally grown food is full of flavour. When grown locally, the crops are picked at their peak of ripeness versus being harvested early in order to be shipped and distributed to your local retail store. Many times produce at local markets has been picked within 24 hours of your purchase.
• Eating local food is eating seasonally. Even though we wish strawberries were grown year round, the best time to eat them is when they can be purchased directly from a local grower. They are full of flavour and taste better than the ones available in the winter that have travelled thousands of miles and picked before they were ripe.
• Local food has more nutrients. Local food has a shorter time between harvest and your table, and it is less likely that the nutrient value has decreased. Food imported from far-away states and countries is often older, has travelled and sits in distribution centres before it gets to your store.
• Local food supports the local economy. The money that is spent with local farmers and growers all stays close to home and is reinvested with businesses and services in your community.
• Local food benefits the environment. By purchasing locally grown foods you help maintain farmland and green and/or open space in your community.
• Local foods promote a safer food supply. The more steps there are between you and your food’s source the more chances there are for contamination. Food grown in distant locations has the potential for food safety issues at harvesting, washing, shipping and distribution.
• Local growers can tell you how the food was grown. You can ask what practices they use to raise and harvest the crops. When you know where your food comes from and who grew it, you know a lot more about that food.

Sagra

It’s a festival of the season’s here at Sagra with a simple, honest menu driven by the freshest produce available from its network of local growers and producers. The restaurant has recently changed hands but the farm-to-table ethos that previous owner and chef, Nigel Ward, instilled still remains.

On the outskirts, we are met with an Old Victorian terrace brick house, with a recently renovated interior. Inside: dark timber floors, matching Brentwood chairs, marble tabletops with beautiful cast iron legs and memories from Nigel’s extensive travels through Italy adorn the walls of the cozy, light filled dining room.

In Italian ‘sagra’ translates to a celebration of a single ingredient at its peak, this often involves traditional festivals held in small country towns. The town celebrates the ingredient – ‘sagra di tartufo’ (White Truffle) for example, by using it as the base for multiple dishes.

With the truffle season coming to an end here in Australia, we were lucky enough to get our hands on one of the last Truffle and Parmesan tarjarin’s, which could not be eaten in silence! The pasta is handmade fresh daily and always al dente: a beautiful pairing with the earthy, aromatic fungus and parmesan. The truffles were sourced from Braidwood, NSW by one of the chefs, Mikey, who went out dog in tow to hunt for the sought after black truffles, which hide under oak and hazelnut trees.

Three Blue Ducks

Earlier this week we went to the Three Blue Ducks in Bronte. The restaurant is historically well known for sourcing local produce, with some of the ingredients coming from their on-site kitchen garden; they strive to use organic, Fairtrade, biodynamic and locally sourced products wherever they can. They have a small garden out the back of the restaurant which was in full sun when we visited early afternoon, which unfortunately needs some serious TLC. In comparison to the Chiswick garden which was bursting with produce, this one had a few lonesome sprouts here and there, nothing of great use for the busy restaurant. They did however boast impressive urban bee keeping facilities; the restaurant makes its own honey!

The coffee was great (two cups great) however the food didn’t dazzle us, especially for the price. I had the Shakshouka: baked eggs, spiced tomato, house pickles, chickpeas, labneh, basil & sourdough. What was more concerning was our waiter’s reluctancy to inform us specifically where the food had been sourced from- all he could tell us was that they source produce from farmers markets.

The Three Blue Ducks are known for promoting sustainable food practices within the local community, setting up footpath herb gardens for all to share. All of the organic waste produced by the restaurant is collected and composted by local community gardeners who as a result grow fresh produce for local families. This is a great initiative and fosters community engagement with the natural cycle of food!

 

Where to source fresh, local produce in Sydney

Ooooby

Ooooby is a social enterprise running fresh local produce deliveries straight to your door. The profits go into building new local food supplies. Ooooby stands for “Out of Our Own Back Yard”.

Farmers markets

Eveleigh, Orange Grove, Kings Cross, Taylor Square and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Growers Markets in Pyrmont. So go say “Hi” to the person growing your food.  Check out Green Villages’ list of all the local farmers markets in inner Sydney.

Food co-ops

Buy just what you need or receive a regular box of local, mostly organic produce to keep your house stocked for the week. It’s also a great way to meet fellow foodies in your local area. Try Alfalfa House, Transition Bondi, Rhubarb Broadway Food Co-op and Sydney University Food Co-op.

Harris Farm

Broadway Bay Street, Broadway
Edgecliff 251 New South Head Rd Point Piper
Potts Point 24-30 Springfield Ave Potts Point
There’s produce you’ll find in Harris Farm that you won’t find in many retailers of this size in Sydney. If you like doing your shopping all in one go, you can always search out some decent organic options here.

Harvest Hub

A great addition to Sydney’s growing number of online produce box services, Harvest Hub started out of a local community co-op and has grown into a far larger box system, with an emphasis on local and seasonal produce.

 

A more comprehensive list can be found here.

Chiswick

Produce picked in the morning, making its way to your plate by lunchtime. Chiswick boasts an impressive 150 square meter kitchen garden situated next to the light filled greenhouse restaurant. We are seated on a big beautiful round table surfaced with patches of dark and light grey metallic flecks, with plenty of room to spread out; a hard find when you venture further in to the cramped spaces of the CBD. Outside our window a horticulturist tends to the Chiswick garden, prepping it for the beginning of spring.

This seems to be the spot for ladies who lunch, at 12:30pm on a Wednesday the room is filled with well-dressed crowds of women sipping on champagne. We order quickly, knowing exactly what we came for – the famous Chiswick lamb sourced from Matt Moran’s family farm located on the Central Tablelands, but before we dive in we start with the garden radish (picked from the Chiswick garden), whipped ricotta and celery salt. A light, crunchy, flavoursome delight and a perfect, not-too-filling, segue to the lamb.

The lamb is cooked overnight and put in to the wood oven to crisp, it arrives with baby eggplant and chermoula; we pull the bone out clean and the rest of the meat shreds apart with the softest touch of my fork. The lamb is remarkably tender, however a bit ambitious to share between two. A salad is needed to cut through the richness of the lamb, go for the garden salad; an offering of fresh produce picked straight from the garden outside the window.

We got about halfway through the lamb before claiming defeat. We traded desert for a walk around the garden with one of the chefs, Tom, who showed us around, picking sugar snap peas, mint and rocket straight from the earth for us to taste. It was clear that not much needed to be done to the dishes; great produce was key. Tom told us about the struggles and benefits of growing an organic garden. Infestations mean the whole crop, along with the soil needs to be completely dug up and replaced- a tough price to pay for not using pesticides. But when the pH level of the soil is in tact and the garden is bursting at the seams, excess produce is given to the local school.

We joke about the edible flowers growing along one row, something Tom detests from his many years in the fine dining industry. The garden is currently filled with lemons, sugar snap peas, oregano, mint, lavender (for the bees & the cocktail bar), mizuna, rocket and some tomatoes on the way!

EM