Heritage vegetables attract top Northern Irish chefs

Top chefs in Northern Ireland are now cooking with heritage vegetables developed by a leading horticulturist in one of the UK's historic Victorian Walled Gardens.

David Love Cameron is restoring the walled garden at Helen's Bay in county Down by developing organic heritage vegetables for both foodservice and retail customers.

The sort of fresh produce he is growing includes Brune d'Hiver lettuce, Red Russian kale and colonial kale, wild sorrel, three cornered leeks, different coloured beetroot, purple podded peas and courgette flowers, all of which offer different taste experiences. Endive is another plant that he's introducing.

Cameron's work to revive near extinct vegetables and herbs has already brought support from Northern Ireland's top restaurants eager to create innovative dishes. They include the Michelin star Eipic and Ox restaurants as well as other critically acclaimed establishments such as James Street South and Muddlers Club, all based in Belfast.

Leading hotels including the five-star Merchant in Belfast are also involved in the project.
Chefs from these restaurants frequently take time out from their culinary duties to help him tend the garden. They have been quick to spot the opportunity his enterprise offers to embrace his produce and create different dishes using long-lost flavours.

The Belfast-based Merchant Hotel team of chefs has been working with Cameron at the picturesque garden since May 2015. They help with the 'heavy lifting', digging the beds, spreading organic manure and pruning the apple and pear trees within the garden.

Danni Barry, head chef at Eipic in Belfast, Ireland's only woman Michelin chef and recently named Ireland's Chef of the Year, also works voluntarily at the historic garden.

The relationships he has developed with chefs here in high-end restaurants has been influenced by a stint developing the organic garden at the famed Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Raymond Blanc's world rated hotel and restaurant in Oxfordshire.

"Raymond Blanc developed the garden to provide a source of unusual organic vegetables for the restaurant. It was tremendous experience working with chefs in the garden and also helping out in the kitchen," he says.

The two-acre site at Helen's Bay, now a certified-organic garden, was part of a trend in Victorian times to ensure fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers for the family, staff and guests of the wealthy. The garden at Helen's Bay was originally created in 1883 by Thomas Workman, founder of the Workman and Clark shipyard in Belfast.

The walled garden at Helen's Bay is one of a small number still in existence. Many of the gardens, an important part of our history, are now largely neglected.

"What we are doing here is reviving the vegetables that would have been grown here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and also introducing other varieties suited to the fertile soil of Co. Down," Cameron says. "There's so much that can be grown organically in Northern Ireland and especially in this part of county Down."

He turned to the Heritage Seed Library (HSL) in England for advice and seeds for vegetables no longer readily available here and certainly not to be found on the shelves of supermarkets.

Pic caption: David Love Cameron is reviving heritage vegetables in Helen's Bay in County Down.