There’s a restaurant in California called Chez Panisse which always features in the top ten of those World’s Best Restaurant lists. The idea behind it is blindingly simple: every night Alice Waters offers a no-choice dinner comprising the freshest, most seasonal organic produce taken straight from the garden and served up with the minimum of fuss. There are no frills, no gimmicks and yet they are booked out months in advance. I’ve always thought it exemplifies what a good local restaurant should be about – and how far you can go if you respect your ingredients and make the most of that connection with the soil.

Which is why I was so excited two weeks ago to be tucking in to a meal of locally reared pork with braised fennel, spinach and beetroot salad and stuffed artichokes, all pulled from the surrounding fields a few hours earlier. The benches were hard, the waitress was overstretched and the chatter from 30 schoolchildren was deafening, but I’ve never tasted fresher food – the sort of produce any chef would kill for.

Of course, what would you expect, sitting as we were in the middle of Riverford Farm near Buckfastleigh in Devon, the largest organic vegetable farm in the country. The owner, Guy Watson, has been farming organically since 1986, when he took over from his father, and for the past 12 years he’s been building up his vegetable box business. Now he sends out 23,000 boxes every week filled with anything from salad leaves and carrots to soft fruits and herbs. At this time of the year, when we are emerging from the so-called “hungry gap”, about 50 per cent of the box contents will be home grown, but come July, when the first potatoes, courgettes and carrots, etc, come on line, that will rise to 85 per cent.

Guy is one of those converts who gives organic farming a good name – passionate without any preachiness. He doesn’t believe organic farming is the only true way, and thinks over-cultivation harms soil more than fertilisers and pesticides (although he follows Soil Association standards as a minimum). He concedes that he’s hopeless at making compost, and that having a team of ducks on slug patrol among the strawberries hasn’t been an out-and-out success. “They ate the slug eggs all right, but unfortunately the foxes ate them.”

What he is undoubtedly good at, though, is sharing his enthusiasm with a wider audience. That’s where the Field Kitchen comes in. He was already catering for nearly 200 farm workers so it seemed a natural extension to open the restaurant to the public. “Our philosophy has always been to take what’s best from the fields and share it with our customers,” he says, “and we’ve always had a lot of visitors to the farm, so we thought we should combine the two.”

So last year he installed a chef, Jane Baxter, and built a kitchen and restaurant in the middle of the farm. For £16 (or £9 for children), you can book in for a tour of the farm, maybe pick peas or beans or whatever is in season, and enjoy them for lunch or dinner. “It’s about making a real connection between the land and the dinner table,” says Guy. They’ve also taken over the catering contract at the local primary school (who are on a field trip to the farm the day I visit). Within a few months, the number of children taking school lunches has shot up from 20 out of 103 to more than 90.

The credit for that is all down to Jane and her team of three in the kitchen. I hope Guy appreciates what a gem he has found in her. Working with such great produce will chime with her days with Joyce Molyneaux at the Carved Angel and Rose Gray at The River Café, but it takes a very natural, instinctive chef to adapt so readily to what is available from day to day.

“The farm is spread out over 1,000 acres so you end up having to do your own foraging,” she says, dishing out rhubarb and strawberry crumble. “You have to know the right people to talk to so you can see what is coming through and what will be ready the following week. But it’s amazing what you can achieve with a little bribe of cake.”

I’ll say. I thought the food would be good, but not that good. The intensity of flavour was stunning and you could see the children thrive on it. If every farm around the country did the same as Riverford, imagine how quickly the nation’s diet and understanding of food would change. Mind you, people like Jane Baxter and Guy Watson don’t come along every day.

The Riverford Field Kitchen is open for lunch, tea and dinner every day. Booking and farm tour essential (01803 762720)

Recipes from The Riverford Field Kitchen

Atafu Pork

Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumble

Braised Fennel

Stuffed Artichokes

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