The culinary ethos How biodynamics is changing the way we eat

Top chefs are tasting the benefits of this age-old method of growing food

Organic farming and food is widespread now, but just a few decades ago, you’d have to go considerably out of your way to find it. The movement’s roots can be traced to the beginnings of biodynamic agriculture, an approach developed in 1924 by Austrian scientist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner – although it can be argued that many farmers around the world had followed similar practices before that. Like organic farming, biodynamic growing strictly prohibits the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, but it also goes a few steps further than that, treating farms as balanced organisms that can sustain themselves, with waste being recycled to feed plants and animals. It adheres to a horticultural calendar, used to indicate optimal sowing, pruning and harvesting times.

Not only does this approach benefit our ecosystem, but the quality of the produce it yields is so good, it’s sought after by the country’s top restaurants and cooks, including Nigel Slater and the Hemsley sisters. Acclaimed chef Skye Gyngell was an early advocate, sourcing ingredients for her London restaurant Spring from Fern Verrow, a biodynamic farm in Herefordshire run by grower Jane Scotter. Gyngell is also at the helm of the kitchens at Heckfield Place in Hampshire, which is currently in the process of converting its gardens and on-site farm to biodynamics. Aiming to be fully certified next year, Heckfield will be the first biodynamic hotel in the UK.

For its contemporary European dishes (above), Peckham-based restaurant Levan teams up with allotment growers who use biodynamic principles on a small scale. ‘The plots are so local that the tomatoes can still be warm from the sun when they arrive,’ enthuses chef Nicholas Balfe. With around 5,000 biodynamic farms worldwide, you can expect to see it on a menu near you soon.