Season’s Eatings: the country’s best garden restaurants

A Victorian walled garden and vineyard on the Kent/Sussex border, Water Lane (right) has an impressive bounty growing in its no-dig beds. As well as swinging by the Saturday market, visitors can sign up to workshops, which might include weaving, natural dyeing or flower pressing, but whatever the purpose of your visit, be sure to book a table the restaurant for some of the loveliest flavours in the south-east. While in winter months you can expect to dine in the heated carnation house (an excellent spot to take over for a party), in the summer, the outdoor terrace – under a tent top – is the spot. For breakfast there’s banana bread with maple butter, and at lunch, fregola saffron risotto with leeks and pistachio crumb, or punched potatoes with walnut pesto.

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Photography: Lesley Lau

In the cutting beds of this 18th-century walled garden near Tisbury (left), visitors might find – depending on the time of year – dahlias, cosmos, delphiniums or foxgloves bursting into bloom, of which they can pick bucket’s worth for just £15 from June to November. Meanwhile, in the kitchen garden, more regular British fare, such as globe artichokes, finds itself in exotic company (keep an eye out for the kiwis), all of which which weaves its way into the restaurant menu of small plates: mozzarella with cavolo nero salsa verde, for instance, cider-braised leeks with pickled mustard seeds, or charcoal-grilled chalk-stream trout, cooked over a fire pit and served with nasturtium-leaf cream.

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You can find the Secret Herb Garden (not shown) amid seven acres of pristine farmland at the foot of the Pentland hills. Just half an hour from the centre of Edinburgh, it offers a great escape from the city – and an opportunity to dine among grapevines, fruit trees and, as you might expect from the name, herb beds. Everything on the menu is inspired by what’s growing on site – whether that’s the black-bean quesadillas, seasonal salads and quiches, or the afternoon tea with homemade scones and clotted cream. And, once a month, it opens in the evening too, for a full-moon dinner hosted in the magical glasshouse.

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A tarmacked hill in Archway, north London, with no obvious ecological value has in recent times been slowly but completely transformed by landscape architect Paul Gazerwitz into OmVed (right). Now there’s a flower meadow planted with lavender, rosemary, sage and much more besides, a handsome willow tree and an organic kitchen garden. While OmVed isn’t a full-time restaurant, its team hosts monthly supper clubs as well as other events (past collaborators include the UN World Food Programme and the Chefs’ Manifesto, a global community working towards sustainable food systems). These low-waste hyper-local plant-based dinners always have a surprise menu that doesn’t disappoint. The garden also runs volunteer sessions, teaching visitors vital food-growing and organic-permaculture skills.

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Photography: Will Hearle

The sweet treats at Lingholm (left) are enormous – and all the better for it. Much-loved regulars include slabs of distinctly retro Victoria sponge or coffee and walnut, but if the passion-fruit cheesecake or lemon tarts with raspberry cream are on, you’d be a fool to miss them. Breakfast is also a winner, with granola and rhubarb compote, stacks of berry pancakes and smoked-bacon butties on the menu. With glass-walled café, Lingholm is a two-mile walk from Keswick in the Lakes, with a walled garden said to have been Beatrix Potter’s inspiration for Mr McGregor’s vegetable patch.

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A low-key Cotswolds spot, Worton’s delightfully madcap cottage garden (right) is a maze of field crops, orchards and greenhouses, with the odd pig or chicken pottering about for good measure. In the shop you’ll find homemade Eccles cakes and jars of fermented pickles – all made from ingredients grown on site – as well as the organic fruit and veg itself. For those looking to eat in, take a seat at one of the simple wooden tables with wildflower posies dotted around the garden and in the glasshouse. On the menu there might be a Sri Lankan celeriac curry, or a French onion soup, followed by a Seville orange tart. Whatever you choose, it’ll no doubt feel perfectly pitched to the beautiful setting.

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At Trerethern Farm on the north coast of Cornwall, sixth-generation farmer Ross Geach produces a rainbow range of vegetables, which end up on the tables of all of Padstow’s best restaurants. Ross, it turns out, knows his food, having spent years working under Rick Stein, and the feast nights he now runs (left) are a hot ticket. Everything is cooked outdoors on a Big Green Egg or on the fire pit, giving the food – often pork, from the farm’s pedigree Cornish large blacks – a delicious smoky flavour. If you’re lucky, you can sample his Padrón peppers (grown in polytunnels), as well as red cabbage and leafy carrots, all of which are also on sale in the wonderfully stocked farm shop.

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Peacocks, alpacas and wildflower meadows set the scene at Wyken (not shown), not far from Suffolk’s border with Norfolk. Housed in the winery’s wisteria-tangled medieval barn, the Leaping Hare serves dishes comprising ingredients gathered from within a five-mile radius: venison reared on the estate, for instance, or chicory picked from the garden, with almost everything else sourced from the Saturday farmers’ market. Special mention goes to the excellent wood-fired pizzas served on the terrace and, of course, Wyken’s award-winning sauvignon blanc.

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