Farm to Table, A Hong Kong Story

“Farm to table” has been a popular culinary concept and trend in Europe for many years. Will it also work in Hong Kong?

The answer is yes.

In Europe, “farm to table” has been a sort of movement. Essentially, “farm to table” means harnessing the produce and livestock of locally grown farmers and ranchers; to put it simply, buying local. “Most produce loses its nutrients within 24 hours of harvesting.” For places like Hong Kong which is not really well known for agricultural development at all, the traditional way for “farm to table” could be like a Mission Impossible to implement, not to mention how to scale up on city wide.

But Interval Farmacy, located inside the Cyberport (數碼港) shopping mall, feels just like a new experiment of “farm to table”; it is also a culinary adventure of plant-based food for the local communities of Hong Kong, aka “Asia’s food paradise” to many.

I first thought it was a vegetarian restaurant and I was wrong. One of many highlights of the restaurant is its custom-built wood fire oven from Naples for making pizzas. It also has an asador-style grill for meats and vegetables.

The restaurant has cooperated with Farmacy, a Hong Kong home-grown startup, to provide seasonal “micro greens” — what you see is also what you can eat and you can eat the greens fast, fresh, and delicious of course.

Farmacy’s mission is to “hand-pick the freshest, premium quality, green produce to perfect your culinary process.” It claims to be the first “Agri Prop” tech company in China and Asia that builds “decentralized smart mobile solutions” in store farms in highly urbanized cities, just like Hong Kong.

Want to have a short escape from the city centre? Interval Farmacy sounds like a good option for weekend brunch. Plus, here “farm to table” means even less than 24 hours.