Chef Skye Gyngell redefines fresh food for RHS Chelsea

Skye trained in Sydney and Paris before coming to London where she took the helm at Petersham Nurseries and honed her signature seasonal, ingredient-led style of cooking. As well as being an acclaimed food writer, Skye currently runs Spring, her own restaurant at Somerset House, and is culinary director of the acclaimed Heckfield Place in Hampshire.

© Spring Garden

Food that’s been taken straight out of the ground has this vitality, energy and flavour that food that’s been flown in from all over the world just can’t have.

Serving up the taste of spring

Creating a menu based on seasonal produce can be difficult to do months ahead, but Skye is looking forward to planning her menu for RHS Chelsea visitors. “It’s a lovely time of year. People think in spring you have all this produce, but it’s actually known as the ‘hungry gap’ when you clear away the winter crop and sow plants for the spring, so it’s not really until about May-June that we start to see real action from the garden. So I’ll use delicate sweet green things like peas, broad beans, asparagus and there’s also apricots, cherries, young carrots, fennel, and radishes. It’s also the best time of year for goat’s cheese and seafood. In the winter we have oily fish that like the cold water, but when it warms up we have things like scallops and crab, wild seabass and halibut, so you’ll see lots of those sorts of things on the menu.”

Whole plant cooking

Spring Garden champions whole plant cooking, the vegetable equivalent of 'nose to tail' eating, to cut down on waste and make the most of the tastes we’re missing when we throw away half of the plant. For example, Skye says figs are not just about the fruit. “Figs are the most delicious thing to eat when the sun’s been on them and they’re really ripe and warm. But the leaves have the most amazing coconut flavour. You can roast them until they’re almost burnt and put into an ice cream, or make a fig leaf oil. Also cauliflower has these unfurling pale green leaves that we blanch and char on the grill.”

Flowers as food

Skye champions using unexpected ingredients from the garden to add beauty as well as flavour to your plate. “I love using tulip petals, you only have about a three-week window to use them, but I add through salads, they have this sweet pepperiness and also a colour pop. They also make a lovely base for canapes.” 

Spring Garden at Chelsea promises to be the definitive fresh food dining experience. What could be a greater reminder of the link between field and plate than dining amidst the world’s greatest flower show? It is the epitome of Skye Glyngell’s cooking philosophy. “Once you taste food grown in good clean soil, in season and close to home, it’s a game-changer. It’s food that really tastes like food.”