by INDIRA NAIDOO, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 29, 2013
The Big Apple’s hotels are sprouting gardens.
Crosby St Hotel chef Anthony Paris checks the chooks
Source: www.firmdalehotels.com
You know the grow-your-own movement has crossed over into the mainstream when some of New York’s hottest hotels start growing vegies on their roofs.
More than 20 Manhattan hotels now have productive rooftop vegetable gardens. Some have their own beehives producing honey – and some even have chickens laying eggs.
So why give vegie patches million-dollar views in a city where real estate is at a premium?
The trend is two-fold: travellers are expecting more organic, seasonal and local ingredients on hotel menus. And when a hotel guest wants to know the provenance of the food, it doesn’t get any more local than this. Rooftop herbs and vegetables aren’t bruised by transportation and storage, and retain more of their nutrients. And the hotels limit their carbon footprint.
There are financial benefits as well. Green roofs reduce heating and cooling cost for large buildings and mitigate against rain and stormwater damage.
Here’s a look at four New York hotels with impressive gardens.
The Westin New York Grand Central
Executive chef Brian Wieler, from the Westin New York Grand Central, is proud of the raised-box vegie garden he has built on the hotel’s 41st floor. When I visit, there are lush beds of late-season heirloom tomatoes, bushes of perfumed basil, fiery jalapeno chillies, peppers, rocket, coriander, rosemary, and mint all thriving in their well-composted beds.
There are 11 boxed beds and nine large wine barrels bursting with vines and bushes. Brian has installed an automatic watering system and only organic fertilisers and natural pest controls are used. There are lady bugs and bees everywhere – a sign of a very healthy garden.
With postcard views of the iconic Chrysler building in the background and giant-headed sunflowers nodding in the breeze, Wieler starts collecting ingredients for a tomato and fresh herb salad he is preparing for me.
“Travellers expect to eat the same quality organic produce they eat at home,” he says.
“And, as a chef, that is exciting to me. I can grow exactly what I want to cook for them right above my kitchen. Of course, we will never be able to source all our produce from our rooftops, but we can certainly always add some rooftop herbs to a dish.”
Later, at the Westin’s LCL bar and kitchen on the ground floor, I sample a sea bass ceviche with jalapenos and coriander from the roof garden, arancini with smoked tomato soup, parmesan foam and just-picked basil – and an addictive rooftop rosemary-infused gin cocktail.
Where: 212 East 42nd Street […]
Soho Grand
Even the fashionista set is joining the trend. Richard Farnabe, executive chef of the SoHo Grand – a favourite New York base for the fashion crowd – has planted a potted heirloom apple orchard on his hotel’s penthouse rooftop.
He picked an apple for me and baked it into a perfectly caramelised tarte tartin, served with house-made ice-cream.
Farnabe has always grown his own produce on his properties, but is clearly excited that the hotel has allowed him to bring his passion for fresh fruit and vegetables right to the rooftop.
“You can taste the difference,” he says. “No storage, no transportation … just fresh and crunchy.”
The SoHo Grand’s garden might be compact at only 40 square metres but in peak summer season the kitchen is harvesting more than 30 fruits and vegetables to supplement its menus. The garden even has its own compost bins and worm farms, where kitchen scraps are recycled.
Next on the agenda is setting up tables and chairs in the garden so guests can dine among the vegetables. What fashionista wouldn’t want that?
Where: 310 West Broadway […]
The Crosby St Hotel
Vegetable gardens have also attracted interest from the design world keen to explore how green spaces can be incorporated into city living.
The Crosby St Hotel, a designer’s jewel box nestled among the cobblestoned side streets of SoHo, has squeezed a small garden along one side of its rooftop. During my visit it’s a little wild and overgrown as New York heads into autumn, but the blackberry bushes are heavy with fruit and there are lots of fat cucumbers hiding under sprawling leaves.
And in the corner there’s a chicken coop with five plump heritage chooks happily scratching in the dirt.
This is an arty hotel with Kit Kemp furnishings, and cool sculptures. How do vegetables fit?
The hotel’s sales and marketing co-ordinator, Thomas D’Antuono, says the vegetable garden has reinvigorated the kitchen and brought a little “pep” to how the hotel is perceived.
“Everyone is so enchanted by the chickens,” he says. “It’s a lovely quiet spot for guests to come and sit and read.”
Where: 79 Crosby Street […]
Intercontinental New York Barclay
The Intercontinental New York Barclay’s 16th-floor vegetable garden is laid out in boxes filled with fruit trees, vegetables and many herbs. There are also beehives to help with pollination and provide honey for the hotel’s daily breakfast buffet. Guests are encouraged to visit and enjoy a slice of green among the grey.
The Barclay has been an environmental trailblazer in many areas. It was one of the first New York hotels to use 100 per cent wind energy and it has an industrial composting system.
I’m staying at the Intercontinental the week everyone warns me to stay clear of New York. The United Nations General Assembly is sitting and the Intercontinental is the preferred hotel. Traffic is a nightmare, men in dark glasses are talking into their sleeves and characters in colourful robes are huddled in corners, whispering intently. I doubt any of these UN delegates knows there’s a thriving vegetable garden on the roof. “We can see a time when vegies and a beehive on a city roof will be just as normal to see as an airconditioning unit,” hotel chef Serge Devesa says.
Where: 111 East 48th Street […]
The writer was a guest of the Westin, the SoHo Grand and the Intercontinental New York Barclay.