DINE FRESH FLAVOURS
CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: MARGAN’S MENU IS DEVELOPED AROUND WHAT’S IN THE GARDEN; SCALLOP CEVICHE WITH BEETROOT, APPLE AND RADISH; CHEF MICHAEL ROBINSON PICKING THE INGREDIENTS FOR THE DAY’S DISHES.
MARGAN RESTAURANT Long before the one-acre kitchen garden and orchard were planted at Margan Estate in 2007, owner Lisa Margan had an epiphany. A lunch of homegrown produce from her own garden, lamb from the farm next door and Margan wine from grapes grown on site was so fabulous that she vowed to establish a kitchen garden for when her restaurant opened. The vision has expanded over the years and is now much broader. “Today we have our own free-range chickens, suckling pigs, olive groves, estate-reared Suffolk lambs and beehives,” she says. “It fits with our wine, which is estate-grown and estatemade. The fresh produce is not just a pot of herbs at the back door; it’s agri-dining. We can do all this because we’re farmers.” Margan’s kitchen garden supplies all the herbs needed yearround as well as citrus and a bonanza of berries, leeks, onions, carrots, radishes, parsnips and turnips in season. There are five types of potato, seven tomato varieties, Jerusalem artichokes, salad leaves and more.
“We have a glasshouse to protect seedlings over winter, and in spring we’re seeing the first of those things, including asparagus, coming out,” she says. Heirloom vegetable varieties are the focus, for their superior flavour, Lisa says. “We can pick them at full ripeness because we only have to get them from the garden to the restaurant,” she explains. “We also save the seeds and replant them.” The menu is always developed around what’s in the garden, although chef Michael Robinson can request certain plantings if he’s prepared to wait a few months to use the produce. “At peak growing time we get up to 90 per cent of our vegetables and herbs from our garden because we write the menu around what’s growing,” Lisa says. “In winter it’s similar, because we just don’t put it on the menu if it’s not coming out of the garden.” Managing gluts has been a steep learning curve, she notes. “When we first put the garden in, it was a hilarious, rocky era. We just planted all the beds out and didn’t give much thought to it, and we had everything needing harvesting at once. There were gluts of everything so we were preserving like mad. Now we stagger the planting so we get continuity.” There’s still the occasional strawberry surplus, though that’s a problem unlikely to elicit sympathy from many gardeners. “Because we want to pick them at perfect ripeness and they’re so perishable,” Lisa says, “we find we have to make coulis and jams to use them up.” Margan has one full-time gardener, Pat Hansson, who has been in charge of the restaurant’s kitchen garden since it was established eight years ago. “When we need some muscle on a spade, we get one of the boys in to help, but she’s across the strategy and planting,” Lisa says. See page 90 or margan.com.au WINECOUNTRY.COM.AU
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