Urban Beach Hotel and Urban Reef restaurant in Bournemouth are obsessed with trying to find the very best local and ethical produce, so obsessed in fact that they grow their own. After renting a farm in the New Forest, they started building their very own ‘Urban Farm’ – with great results for their ‘foodie’ customers.
Mark Cribb, local boy and owner of the Urban Beach hotel and Urban Reef restaurant said: “It was becoming quite difficult to find local produce as a lot of farmers deal directly with supermarkets. We wanted to provide our guests with ethical, seasonal and quirky vegetables and it was just too expensive to do that through the supermarkets. So creating our own farm seemed to be the best option – now it only takes 90 minutes from picking the vegetables to being on the customers’ plate.”
Mark was also keen to develop the knowledge of his staff– so he takes them to the farm to learn about seasonal produce. He said: “ the staff learn about seasonality, the freshest produce, what makes the best basil for a pesto, the best mint for a mojito, the best tomato for a salad, the freshest rhubarb for a cocktail coulis – or why it’s worth waiting 1,000 days to harvest our very own asparagus!”
The Urban Farm produces all the usual tomatoes and potatoes but also some quirky offerings for their customers including:
- Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans
- Borage leaves
- Yacon
For more information on Urvan Reed Restaurant click here
For more information on Urban Beach Hotel click here