The Beginning of a Farm-Restaurant

Sourcing products from local purveyors is no longer the next big thing. In fact name chefs like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, Peter Hoffman of Savoy, and Dan Barber of Blue Hill have all been working with local farmers and producers for more than 20 years. A trend identified two years ago by the National Restaurant Association — local sourcing — is here to stay. What is unusual is to find a restauranteur inspired by the farmers he meets (or perhaps a mid-life crisis) who decides to take up farming. For the last 13 years Mark Firth has been a successful restauranteur in Brooklyn's demanding food scene who turned recently to farming in The Berkshires, a bucolic part of Western Massachusetts where Dan Barber also hails from. Not everyone encouraged him to head down this path.  A German chef at a Slow Food event said: "You're taking two businesses with the lowest returns — farming and restaurants —and combining them. I think that's a bad idea." Mark took that as a challenge.  "You know everything we've done people have told us is a bad idea so I said let's do it. But I wouldn't underestimate the amount of work raising a garden and maintaining a restaurant that is consistently good." [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/19721362[/vimeo] More on Mark Firth From a Diner in Brooklyn to a Farm in Monterey