In Season | April

There’s a quiver of excitement when the British asparagus season arrives – running from April 23rd, St George’s Day, to the summer solstice on June 21st. While the season may be relatively short, it’s definitely a firm favourite on menus across the country. The advice from our development chef, Simon Spooner is to keep it simple and griddle with olive oil and seasoning, top with gremolata and toasted pinenuts.

Although it didn’t reach British shores until the mid-1500s, it’s been a popular vegetable in other parts of the world since ancient times. There’s even an asparagus recipe in one of the oldest surviving collection of recipes from the 1st century AD.

Outside of the British season, asparagus comes from further afield, with the main origins being Mexico and Peru. They are high in folate and a source of vitamin C.

Our partnership with Isle of Wight Tomatoes provides our customers with some of the nation’s most flavoursome produce. Grown across 27 hectares of glasshouses, these premium tomatoes benefit from the island’s unique growing conditions, which has the most hours of sunshine in the UK and reflected light from the surrounding sea, which gives the fruit the wonderful flavours that our customers love.

But, as well as the taste and flavour, we also selected Isle of Wight Tomatoes for its commitment to sustainability. Its focus on zero waste, where product that’s not quite good enough makes some wonderful passatas and a closed-loop biodegradable system, which means that all crop waste is recycled to enrich the organic soil.

This is a product where less is more and development chef David Lively likes them sliced and marinated with red onion, olive oil, garlic and basil, served on griddled sourdough, torn mozzarella, black pepper and balsamic.

A much-loved chef’s ingredient emerging from the winter chill is open field rhubarb. This versatile favourite brings a strong British heritage and flavour to a wide range of dishes and comes into its own at the end of April.

The name rhubarb comes from the Latin ‘rhababarum’, which means root of the barbarians as no self-respecting Roman would eat rhubarb. But we prefer to think that the Chinese had the right idea, growing it for its medicinal properties since the 16th century – maybe they knew that an 80g serving counts a one of your five a day!

The sharp, sour taste is a fantastic complement to fish, as well as its traditional dessert, where Head of Food Development, Ian Nottage, loves little rhubarb syllabubs, whipped cream with white wine, vanilla and rhubarb poaching juices, layered in a glass with rhubarb and topped with ginger biscuit crumb.