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Featuring our beautiful restaurant, garden and flavoursome veg. Recipes, events, veg revolution and more.

Our kitchen garden is a joy to us, our guests and

Our kitchen garden is a joy to us, our guests and all manner of wildlife. It changes everyday, season and year. Always evolving.

Here are some of the beauties growing at the moment; tomatoes, cucumbers, gherkins, chillies, sweetcorn, aubergines, Tripoli onions and more.

What's growing in your garden, veg patch, allotment, window box?

Green bean, grilled nectarine and pistachio.

Green bean, grilled nectarine and pistachio. A perfect BBQ dish to impress this weekend.

The sweetness of grilled fruit lends itself so well to savoury dishes and are a perfect summer salad star.

Here we’ve paired with seasonal green beans and pistachios – the saltiness of the nuts work so well with the sweetness of the fruit. Make sure your fruit isn’t too ripe as it will turn to mush when you cook it.

We had the most amazing dinner last night with gue

We had the most amazing dinner last night with guest chef Marianna Leivaditaki.

We feasted on recipes inspired by Marianna's upbringing in Crete which feature in her book Aegean.

Dishes included sun-dried tomatoes, charred corn, rainbow carrots and chilli butter. Lamb fillet with anchovy butter, Cretan barley summer salad and to finish, crispy filo, custard and peaches.

We had a lot of happy guests and full tummies!

Marianna was an absolute delight to work with - she's no stranger to our team as they used to work together in London, so it was a bit of a reunion. We'd definitely welcome her back anytime...and her cooking!

So many beautiful flowers growing in the Field Kit

So many beautiful flowers growing in the Field Kitchen Garden thanks to our head gardener @pennyhemming.

Dahlias, zinnias, cosmos and rudbeckia and nigellas to name a few, are brightening up the garden and the restaurant tables.

We do sell bunches of flowers in the restaurant that you can pick up if you visit us, but why not go a step further and join is for our Summer Blooms Floral Arrangement workshop, where you will be guided by Penny and create your own floral masterpiece.

Details are on our website and link in bio too. Running through August.

#flowers #growyourown #flowergarden #floralworkshop #flowerworkshop

"So much more than a cookbook; it is a love song t

"So much more than a cookbook; it is a love song to Crete and its cuisine."

We are in love with Marianna's debut book. Not only does the book take you on a Cretan culinary journey, it also captures the dramatic beauty of the Mediterranean island's landscape and makes you want to jump on the next plane to escape there.

The recipes in her book, inspired by the Sea, the Land, and the Mountains of the Aegean islands, celebrate the wealth of the Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, fresh vegetables and fruit, nuts, fish, and whole grains, and a passion for good food and shared meals.

And we can't wait to welcome Marianna to The Riverford Field Kitchen tomorrow evening for an Aegean Feast, inspired by recipes from her book.

To celebrate, we are giving away three copies of this beautiful book.

To enter, simply follow us and @mleivaditaki and tag who you would take to Crete to sample the regions cuisine.

Winners will be chosen and announced on this post on Thursday.

Good luck and watch our stories in Wednesday night to see dishes from Marianna's Aegean Feast.

Another in our series of cooking over fire recipes

Another in our series of cooking over fire recipes.

Beetroots, like sweet potato and onion, are so easy to cook in the embers of a fire/BBQ.

Beetroot, burnt horseradish cream & chives

10 medium beetroots
500ml double cream
50g fresh, grated horseradish
1 bunch of chives
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Place whole beetroots (skin on) into the embers of a dying fire and allow to steam in their natural casing.

Once tender (check by piercing with a sharp knife), remove from the fire and peel charred exterior.

To make the Horseradish cream; In a large pot with a well fitting lid, pour your double cream. Being very careful, take a large serving spoon and transfer some of the hot embers from the fire into pot with the cream. Be careful, the cream will hiss and spit.

Put to now side and allow to smoke and cool. Once cooled, strain off the now smoked cream to remove any embers.

Whip together with the horseradish, lemon, salt and pepper to form stiff peaks. Serve with the cooled beetroots and some chopped chives.

Tomatoes need very little adding to them to be enj

Tomatoes need very little adding to them to be enjoyed, a drizzle of good olive oil and a sprinkling of salt would suffice. But if you want to take them to the next level, try this recipe on your BBQ or fire pit.

Grilled tomatoes and bay leaf oil (sieve cooking)

You will need:
50 fresh bay leaves
200ml veg oil
2kg cherry tomatoes
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Place a large sieve or cake rack over a medium heat on your BBQ. This creates a surface you can grill much smaller things on than a conventional BBQ grill.

Grill your cherry tomatoes till nicely blistered but not completely falling apart. They should be slightly blackened on the outside but still raw on the outside.

Then, grill your bay leaves till slightly blackened. This will happen very quickly so keep an eye on them. Once grilled, place bay leaves in a find processor with oil, salt and lemon juice and blend for a good 10 minutes. You will end up with a very intense, dark green bay leaf oil.

Dress the tomatoes in the oil and allow to marinade overnight at room temperature. This can be served as it is or tossed through a salad. Its also lovely on toast or served with mozzarella or any soft cheese.

We want to see your photos if you try this recipe at home. Tag us in @riverfordfieldkitchen

Ember sweet potato mash

This one is too simple not to give it a go and is delicious with flatbreads or salsa verde drizzled over.

Wrap your sweet potato in foil and place in embers of fire until soft.

Scoop out the flesh and mix with butter and salt until you have a ‘mash’ consistency.

It's #nationalbbqweek so we are going to share som

It's #nationalbbqweek so we are going to share some of our favourite and simple recipes hot from our veg over fire demo ahead of the sunny weekend.

Whole red onions, pom molasses, parsley and sumac

10 x red onions
1 bunch of flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon of sumac
1 tablespoon of caster sugar
300ml pom molasses
100ml good quality olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Place whole onions (skin on) into the embers of a dying fire and allow to steam in their natural casing. Once cooked pop them out of their shells.

To make the dressing; pick the parsley down and roughly chop. Mix the oil, molasses parsley together. Season to taste. Dress the onions and sprinkle the sumac on top.

Finish the dish with a good squeeze of lemon juice.

W I N We are giving away three copies of Ixta Be

W I N

We are giving away three copies of Ixta Belfrage’s first solo book MEZCLA to celebrate it’s publication day.

Recently named as one of the most influential women in food by Code, and co-author of bestselling FLAVOUR with Ottolenghi, Ixta’s style of cooking draws inspiration from three countries she grew up traveling to, eating in and obsessing over; Brazil (where her mum is from), Italy (where she lived as a child) and Mexico (where her grandad lived).

Her new book is a collection of eclectic recipes from different cuisines and cultures, and appropriately named Mezcla, which is ‘mix’ in Spanish.

Swipe to see two of our favourite recipes (which may, or may not, appear on our menu on the 27th July when Ixta will be cooking up a MEZCLA feast at The Riverford Field Kitchen!).

To enter, comment below with your cooking inspiration and tag a friend you’d like to cook for using Ixta’s book.

Romesco & grilled leek or onion Romesco sauce is

Romesco & grilled leek or onion

Romesco sauce is a Catalan classic: a full-bodied, textured just and red pepper mix. It's highly recommended to make double quantities and keep some in the fridge.

Onion for grilling
5 red peppers
1 red chilli
1 tablespoon paprika
100g sun dried tomatoes
100ml good quality olive oil
150g whole almonds
Juice and zest of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Grill onions too desired doneness and set aside.

To make the Romesco, toast your almonds in a medium oven until golden brown.

Grill the red peppers over fire, allow to cool, peel and deseed.

Blend all the ingredients together in a food processor until a coarse paste is formed. Serve with grilled onions.

Green tomatoes If you are craving tomatoes from

Green tomatoes

If you are craving tomatoes from the garden but they’re not red and ripe yet, then try this simple recipe.

Place green tomatoes on the side of the BBQ – not on a direct flame or heat zone that’s too hot. Warm them through and then take them off the heat and chop.

Serve with salsa verde drizzled over the top or simple with a good olive oil and salt.

Salsa Verde recipe:

1 bunch parsley
½ bunch mint
½ bunch tarragon
½ bunch chervil
200g lilliput capers (small capers)
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
Juice of 1 lemon
1 garlic clove grated
500ml of olive oil or enough to get salsa consistency

Hand chop all the herbs and roughly chop the capers (you don’t want them too fine). Mix together and season with salt & pepper.

These tomatoes will taste delicious with BBQ’d mackerel and it's also a perfect recipe for the end of the season if you're left with a green tomato glut.

S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y

Here is our co-owner Hetty with our Sustainability Champion finalist certificate, from @foodmagazinesw Food Reader Awards.

As much as it is an honour to be voted for and win awards, that's not why we strive to be sustainable. Everything any of us do should leave as small a footprint as possible on the earth.

As a farm restaurant, we can keep food miles extremely low. Our veg comes from the farm(s) or our kitchen garden. Our dairy comes from @riverforddairy and our meat comes from the Riverford butchery - both less than a mile away.

Obviously our menu is veg heavy with just one meat dish out of eight on the set menu. The set menu helps us reduce food waste as we only prepare and cook what we need.

All our food waste goes into our compost heaps which then goes back into the garden soil to grow more veg.

We use minimal plastic in the restaurant and reuse as much as possible. Even our olive oil cans get a new lease of life in the garden as Head Gardener @pennyhemming plants chilli seedlings in them which guests can buy.

We don't use any peat in the kitchen garden, we save seed instead of buying in year after year and the garden is now 50% no dig so we disturb the soil as little as possible.

The land beneath our feet is also one of our most important and powerful aides to leverage against climate change. Organic farming boosts soil health, which helps to sequester carbon underground, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere.

We will continue to learn, make changes (and mistakes)!

G O L D ! We are thrilled to have been awarded wi

G O L D !

We are thrilled to have been awarded with a Taste of the West Gold Award in their South West restaurant category.

The judges said: “Riverford Field Kitchen is without doubt an absolute showcase of local sourcing, they grow most of their produce on the farm and surrounding area, prepare it and serve it to you on a plate.”

This is our second award of 2022, with the first being a silver for best restaurant in the Devon Tourism Awards where the judges said: “An amazing restaurant experience with an earthy and heathy feel. They really make the most of their veg product and situation and it really makes the ambience. The quality of the food was second to none.”

Our team are passionate about veg and creating inspiring dishes for guests to share which showcase how veg can be the star of the plate.

We have an abundance of flavoursome, organic veg grown within metres of the restaurant and we grow different varieties that are chosen for flavour and to inspire our guests to try something a little different.

We grow over 28 types of tomatoes, mainly heritage varieties so they grow in all manner of shapes, colours and sizes. We grow sweetcorn, salad leaves, aubergines, squash, lots of basil and herbs, chillies, cucumbers, onions and more. No year is ever the same.

Growing our own not only allows us to serve veg that’s truly fresh from the soil, but also lets us experiment with using every part of the plant, so that nothing goes to waste.

It is an honour to win awards, but it’s our guest reviews which mean the most; "I honestly didn't realise it was possible to blown away to the ends of the earth by beetroot. From poached leeks, to chargrilled courgettes, to romesco, every mouthful was just one piece of utter perfection."

Ahead of the busy summer, we are looking forward to welcoming back past guests and welcoming some new ones. We are already getting booked up for the summer holidays so book soon if you want to join us for a veg adventure!

#organicveg #organicrestaurant #seasonalmenu #seasonalveg #livelifeontheveg #growyourown #vegcentric #veg #tasteofthewest #devontourismawards #visitdevon #visitsouthdevon

The summer salad season has begun. Here we have to

The summer salad season has begun. Here we have tomatoes, nectarine and green beans.

If you've never BBQ'd stone fruit before, then this is your gentle nudge to try.

Griddled nectarines are simplicity themselves. Halve and stone them, lightly brush with some plain oil, place them on the BBQ and griddle them, face-side down, over a medium heat until nicely marked. This should take about 4-5 mins.

Resist the temptation to play with them too much or they’ll tend to stick or tear. Flip them and cook for a further 4 mins or so, until softened – the skins will wrinkle and pull away from the flesh when they’re ready.

Don't just eat for pudding, they are delicious in a salad.

Harvesting crimson broad beans, purple podded peas

Harvesting crimson broad beans, purple podded peas, green peas and puntarelles.

Join us for a Wicked Leeks Live event with two far

Join us for a Wicked Leeks Live event with two farming revolutionaries: farmer and founding editor of The Land magazine Simon Fairlie, and Riverford’s founder Guy Singh-Watson.

Amidst mounting urgency around the climate crisis and clampdowns on our right to protest, this timely and inspiring discussion will cover how activism is still closely connected to food and the future of farming, and where the opportunities lie for hope and progressive change.

The event is on Thursday 30th June, starting at 7pm. And of course, it includes a delicious organic feast at The Riverford Field Kitchen.

Tickets on website:
www.theriverfordfieldkitchen.co.uk or link in bio and stories.

We popped down to Baddaford Farm last week; Guy's

We popped down to Baddaford Farm last week; Guy's land where he practises "experimental farming" in his own words.

@riverford have tried many times to grow our own strawberries at Wash Farm but never with success. Guy and his farm manager, Milan, have perfected a method over the last couple of years which has produced a great harvest this year.

More time, less scale both attribute to the success but also make it much harder to make any profit - a challenge which all small growers face.

Guy sells his strawberries directly to @riverford for boxes so if you're eating them this weekend, swipe to take a look at the field they were grown in.

Head gardener @pennyhemming has a lot of harvestin

Head gardener @pennyhemming has a lot of harvesting to do which also means there's an abundance of veg heading towards the kitchen for the chefs.

This week Penny had; "lots of fat juicy green lettuce and some red fancy lettuce, puntarelles, broad beans, beetroot, parsley, basil lime, Rosie and Greek particularly, elephant garlic, thyme, french tarragon, small amount of summer savoury. Some tree spinach."

If you're coming for lunch or supper this week, look out for them on the menu.

You can find the carrot top pesto recipe that Penny mentions on the @riverford website or link in our bio 🥕🥕🥕

Join us for a half-day cookery demo with the River

Join us for a half-day cookery demo with the Riverford Field Kitchen chefs, and learn how to create flavoursome, flame-cooked dishes with fresh veg picked from the Riverford Farm and our kitchen garden.

BBQs aren’t only the home of steaks and sausages; fresh veg can be just as happy above a pile of glowing embers. When you cook veg over fire flavours intensify, surfaces caramelise and edges get irresistibly crisp and charred.

Outdoor cooking can be much more interesting and varied than you’d imagine by cooking not just above the coals, but also in the embers - bringing an exciting range of textures and flavour to your plate.

It's a relaxed demo with just 12 guests and there will be plenty of chat, hints and tips along the way - and of course tasting the dishes that the chefs create.

When: Monday 27th June / Monday 4th July

Time: 9.30am - 12.30am

Cost: £65 per person

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