Skye Gyngell grew up in a family that ate a macrobiotic diet, but “that’s fairly brown food,” she says. “I’ve always believed that food is medicine so that was always in me, and I always cared because I came from a family that cared.”
With that seed planted, Gyngell has grown into a celebrated chef, working with the biodynamic farming team as executive chef at Heckfield Place in Hook, England, and at Spring, her signature restaurant in London. “I found the joy in food,” she says.
At Heckfield Place, in the Hampshire countryside, she has become an evangelist of sorts for thoughtful, biodynamic farming.
“Food grown in nutrient-dense soil has a lot of energy,” she says. “It’s beautiful. It’s bright. It’s always super colorful, and it’s always maximum flavor, and it’s always energetic. I think that people can taste it, people can see it. Food eaten in season, grown under the best conditions, just tastes better.”
Contributed by Jeanette Hurt
The luxury estate features an 800-tree orchard, woodland, apiary and a small dairy with Guernsey cows, along with chickens and meat. “We make every liqueur here, every butter, every bread with natural fermentation, every jam, every yogurt,” she says. “We do take some things from Europe, as we can’t grow lemons here or produce olive oil. But it’s about educating people. It’s really lovely to see how people respond to the food and respond to the farm, and people adore the farm.”
The education comes, she explains, when people ask for things, like mangoes, for example. “We don’t grow them in this country, but we do have ripe peaches, picked at sunrise,” she says. “It’s through deliciousness that we can change people’s attitudes.”
The bounty kept farmers and F&B staff busy during lockdown – planting and harvesting produce, extracting honey, milking the cows. “We do very comprehensive planting lists,” she says. “At the end of the year, you estimate that in the second week of July, you’ll need 30 kilos of strawberries, 20 kilos of raspberries, etc., so we had all of this produce coming out, and we had no one to serve it to.”
Instead of letting it go to waste, they put together produce boxes starting, with a few greens and spring cabbages, then adding other items. “We saw a great surge of people wanting to cook, and they couldn’t go to restaurants so we started selling our sourdough starter, and we started selling flowers,” Gyngell says. “It just kind of snowballed.”
The farm organized vegetable boxes, but then began adding some cooked meals, such as lasagnas and chicken stews. Over the summer, about 60 items that change with the season were offered, including vegetables, flowers, breads, “and our ice creams are crazy popular,” she says.
The boxes and meals were sold both at the farm as well as in London. “It’s helped keep revenue for the farm, but it’s also keeping us relevant, and we have something to talk about and can say ‘Hi, guys, we’re here, and we’re still doing things, and we’re still busy,’” Gyngell says. “It’s a nice story to tell, and it’s been a nice story to keep people engaged.”
Heckfield Place reopened over the summer to about 40% occupancy, and to keep social distancing, the culinary staff opened up the whole grounds to creatively space people out.
“We’re curating different dining experiences,” she says. “If you’ve lived in a city, you will want to go outside. I think it will definitely be a challenge for us to deliver. But in gearing up for reopening, it’s been lovely making all the cordials, all the jams, all the breads and cakes to welcome everyone to tea, and it feels very exciting. I feel thankful and grateful that people have been supporting us.”
The farm will continue to sell its vegetable boxes, she says. “We’ll continue to grow it as a little business,” she says. “We’ve learned so much, and we also like to share what we have in a wider sense, and we have more than enough produce to send out into the world, and I don’t want to stop doing that.”
As guests return to the hotel, Gyngell has been able to rehire more people. Working with less staff, she has been more hands on in the kitchen than she has been in years.
“I’ve had the pleasure of cooking,” she says. “It’s re-rooted me. We have to look after the planet, and we cannot part ourselves from it I’m on a bit of a mission. Alice Waters always says, ‘It’s a revolution, but let’s make it a delicious revolution.’.. Let’s do it.”