There are torn basil leaves and, for a salty kick, cairns of crumbled feta. On top are slabs of roasted butternut squash, like crescent suns, their bright orange set against the crimson of pickled beetroot. One comes spread thickly with their own punchy hummus. You can measure the depth of these “sandwiches” with a long ruler. Then they turn up and it becomes clear that the thick slice of sourdough underneath – from Rockstar Bakers in Herne Hill – while part of the offering, is essentially a platform, upon which the kitchen assembles its ideas. Most of the rest of the menu looks like a bunch of open sandwiches, each at a little over a fiver. It’s a big, thoughtful bowl of the good things. For a dab of colour there are a few purple blooms. Today for £6.50, there is a salad of both roasted and pickled fennel, with the caramelised, nutty bite of roasted Jerusalem artichokes, heaps of soft green lentils and cherry tomatoes bursting from their skins. What defines it all is the attention to the fundamentals. But for the most part the menu scribbled on the blackboard goes the way of the vegetable. There is a little meat on the menu here, some of it from the animals kept on the farm. Wilson and Hall, who have worked everywhere from high-end restaurants through community cafés to food banks, met at the Borough Market outpost of steak mavens Hawksmoor. Eggs cooked soft then broken up and heaped one atop the other, with thin discs of chorizo On an early autumn day, with the warm sun now a little lower in the sky, and the foliage starting to sag with weight from a long, exhausting summer of frenetic growth, the rest of the city beyond the gates feels a very long way away. There are farm animals, too, including pigs, sheep, ducks and geese, kept not as pets for children merely to coo over, although there is a bit of that.
On these three acres they grow giant pumpkins and broad beans, beetroots and garlic, redcurrants, rhubarb and so much more besides. The farm has returned the favour, by nurturing the community within which it sits. But there are other less tangible virtues to do with simple wellbeing and an environment that has been nurtured into life for the past 40 years by the local community. It is space in which the old skills are kept alive. There are arts and training projects here for people with disabilities regularly the paths throng with visits by schools.
Saying city farms have educational value is like saying a glass of water will quench your thirst. None of that should detract from the vital importance of places like this. The proponents of practical urban farming always seem to underestimate the true scale of the demand for food in densely populated cities. It’s a sweet fantasy, though a fantasy all the same. There are those who will tell you that places like this are a solution to the apparent iniquities of Big Food Retail, with capital letters of long supply chains, and concrete jungles so far from the fields that we could all eat local if only we put our minds to it, and lifted the paving stones to find the dark fertile earth beneath. So far, it’s providing just 15% of the ingredients, but will, in time, provide much more.
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