Around the world, leading boutique hotels and inspired chefs are taking the farm-to-table concept to exciting new levels.
Michelin-starred Japanese mountain vegetables and the country’s finest rice. Foraging for edible flora and fauna on a Mexican peninsula. Georgia’s first vertical farm and a partnership with Europe’s largest regenerative farm. At these six Design Hotels member properties, farm-to-table cuisine takes on new meaning: produce is grown directly onsite, with each restaurant acting as a beacon for visitors to gather alongside locals and enjoy the freshest flavours of the region.
Mexico
Providing access to over a mile of beachfront and 177 acres of palm groves, Hotelito at MUSA is a retreat for the modern traveler on a mini peninsula in Guerrero, Mexico. The sprawling grounds feature an organic garden growing produce used at the in-house restaurant Alba, where seasonal menus are served amongst an open-air ambiance.
Chef-driven, produce-focused, and quality-forward, Alba brings a community spirit to elevated dining. Chef’s Table experiences offer custom eight-course tasting menus, with each dish presenting the best of local technique and terroir. Guests who want to go the extra mile can even participate in a farm and field foraging session to tour the property’s edible gardens and wild-growing flora and fauna.
Japan
In Minami-Uonuma City, Japan, Satoyama Jujo’s Michelin-starred restaurant Sanaburi produces tastes unique to the region. Under the direction of chef Keiko Kuwakino—whose specialties are mountain vegetables and body-healing spices in the Ayurvedic tradition—the menu emphasizes the naturally occurring flavours of fresh, local, and organic ingredients.
After the spring thaw, the staff head into the mountains to collect a stunningly wide variety of vegetables, including wild ferns and butterbur shoots. Some of the harvest is served fresh, while some is preserved using traditional methods in the winter. No matter the time of year, the main dish is Minami-Uonuma’s Koshihikari rice—often considered the best rice in Japan—which rounds out the fully organic meals, letting the natural ingredients speak for themselves.
Georgia
At Stamba Hotel in Tbilisi, the in-house Café Stamba celebrates Georgia’s culinary heritage through an avant-garde and fresh take on the country’s classic dishes. The all-day menu is crafted from fresh, seasonal ingredients—some of which are produced onsite at Space Farms, the country’s first urban vertical farming project, and Udabno Lab, a zero-waste production site for almond-based products.
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Space Farms, built across seven levels of racks offering 200 square meters of surface, cultivates baby greens, leafy greens, and edible flowers as well as strawberries and miniature vegetables. Udabno Lab, meanwhile, transforms organic almonds harvested from Europe’s largest regenerative farm into an array of edible products like oil, milk, and ice cream. For ingredients sourced offsite, Stamba works with the Georgian Farmers’ Association to assure farm-to-table quality.
Greece
Cuisine is central to the Cretan way of life—a fact recognized in the island’s UNESCO-protected food heritage and one that Cretan Malia Park takes seriously. From traditional recipes to the region’s bounty of produce, every element of Crete’s culinary identity is interwoven into the food and beverage offerings at the resort. The three primary restaurants—helmed by lauded chef Athinagoras Kostakos—use ingredients handpicked from the hotel’s onsite garden and from local farms to serve a sustainable selection of Cretan, Italian, and Mediterranean specialties.
An abundance of Cretan wines also allows guests to experience the island’s recently revived wine industry. Plus, one of the property’s most standout programs is the Phāea Farmers project, through which staff working as farmers during low season are supported and guided toward more sustainable land use and organic farming methods, with their produce used in the hotel’s kitchens during high season.
Portugal
At Immerso Hotel, in Ericeira, Portugal, celebrated chef Alexandre Silva—whose Lisbon restaurant LOCO was awarded a Michelin star—produces fresh and straightforward cuisine that values the local terroir and relies on harvests from organic producers. The menus at each of the hotel’s two restaurants, Emme and Emme on Fire, focus on sustainably caught seafood and farm-fresh ingredients, many of which are sourced from an onsite organic garden growing around 30 types of vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
As the first destination restaurant in the area, Emme on Fire offers an experience immersed in nature, where the primary element of the kitchen is fire. Here, authentic dishes arise from charcoal embers or the wood-fired oven. Emme, on the other hand, offers a casual atmosphere and Atlantic cuisine: dishes are based on what the ocean provides, including fish and saline-tasting plants from Berlenga and Ericeira sourced daily from a local fish market.
United Kingdom
On a leafy corner in West London, Inhabit Southwick Street is rooted in a holistic concept of wellbeing, expressed in everything from meditation spaces and strategic partnerships with social enterprises to the culinary offerings. An all-day menu, prepared and served by neighbor restaurant Yeotown, features an abundant range of plant-based dishes, cold-pressed juices made to order, coffees, and teas. Inspired by a distinct Californian approach to food, the kitchen aims at wholesome nourishment in harmony with the hotel’s overall wellness-first concept. Here, food is not only fresh, filling, and delicious, but aimed at restoring both the body and mind.
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