The Duke of Cambridge comes to Riverford Geetie Singh founded the first organic pub in Islington. She’s now channelling her expertise into re-energising the Riverford Field Kitchen, writes Harriet Mellor. Photos by Kate Mount
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t was probably the radicchio that sealed the deal. When two organic pioneers stood in a field enthusing about a mutual love of the bitter-tasting purple Italian lettuce, marriage and mergers soon followed suit. Before joining forces, both halves of the couple had, individually, made a massive mark on the sustainable world. Guy ‘Riverford’ Watson, is the man who began growing vegetables on his Devon family farm. Instead of being beholden to supermarket chains, he began delivering boxes of seasonal organic veg to his local mates. Now that weekly box round comprises 47,000 UK-wide deliveries each week, from four farms around the UK and another in France. Geetie Singh is founder of the world’s first (and only) certified organic gastropub, The Duke of Cambridge in London’s Islington, and was awarded an MBE in 2009 for Services to the Pub Trade. Listing their respectively accumulated awards for commitment to ethical food, their businesses, inclusions on advisory boards (both being fabulous eco-gurus) could take up this entire page. It was in her role as a trustee of the Soil Association that Geetie ended up in South Devon looking at restaurants with the travel publisher and environmentalist, Alastair Sawday. “Myself and Alastair were on a fact-finding mission. We visited Guy at the Field Kitchen (restaurant). He spent the afternoon with us and I was completely blown away by his philosophies and passions when he talked about his business and vegetables. We went to the radicchio fields, my favourite lettuce, and he sent me home with some, joking that my love of them meant I was a woman after his own heart.” The couple’s professional paths had crossed over the years, but not always in a positive way. After one meeting, where he tried to muscle in on her patch, marrying Guy Watson would have been the last thing on Geetie’s mind. “In 2007 Guy came to see me and
asked about opening an organic pub in London. We had a frosty meeting with me getting angry, thinking, ‘what are you doing on my territory? You, big organic entrepreneur, are you trying to take away my market?’” At that time ‘The Duke’ was very much Geetie’s baby. Whilst waitressing in her early 20s, disillusioned by standards in the eating industry but inspired by the emergence of the first London gastropubs, Geetie’s vision was to open an organic pub. So she went on a mission to learn the business inside out by taking on various roles in the restaurant and pub trade. “I was clear about what I wanted to learn from the age of 24. I was really shocked by the lack of sustainability in restaurants and couldn’t believe the crap ingredients people were being charged extortionate prices for. It was dreadful the way staff were paid and treated. The whole employment and procurement ethos was just appalling and I knew it didn’t have to be done like that. “For years my plan was to open an organic gastropub that was as ethically driven as possible, but I knew first and foremost it had to be a really good restaurant.” Turning concept into reality took some persuading, as organic meat, veg and micro-brewed beers were an alien culinary concept back then. The catering world and its customers were still riding high on microwaves and ready-made meals. “I gathered five private investors, including Salman Rushdie. We kept it quiet at the time. He was just out of hiding when we opened it.”
Guy Watson and Geetie Singh-Watson outside the Duke of Cambridge
MANOR | Late Spring 2015
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