Eating well is one of the best parts of any trip. To ensure that every meal is a knockout, those in the know stay at farm-to-table hotels, where the food is grown sustainably and harvested on-site. But besides providing the freshest possible ingredients, the farm adds another dimension to the guest experience, offering a deeper connection to the hotel and its surroundings.
Farm-to-table hotels highlight their reliance on hyperlocal ingredients by offering culinary classes or gardening workshops, which often begin by picking what is fresh in the field. Other resorts take a more informal approach to farm education by offering a casual tasting tour with the head gardener. Whether you want to savor the local bounty or come home inspired to plant your own sustainable garden, these farm-to-table hotels will inspire your green thumb — as well as your appetite.
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico
Before it was an inn, Los Poblanos was a dairy and working ranch that produced alfalfa, oats, corn and barley in the 1930s and ’40s. Honoring those agricultural roots today, the inn offers guests organic food sourced from its kitchen gardens and grows 7 acres of lavender.
Thought to be sweeter and more potent than others, Grosso-variety lavender is used as a base for products like the signature hand-poured salve sold in the hotel’s Artisan Shop. To see the fields in bloom, visit in June, or when the hotel hosts its Lavender Long Table Dinner in July to celebrate the season. Lavender lovers can also sign up for workshops on aromatherapy and learn how to cultivate the plant at home.
Oxfordshire, England
One of the main reasons to book a stay at the Belmond Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons is to enjoy a leisurely multicourse meal at Raymond Blanc’s restaurant. The Michelin-starred chef is passionate about serving the highest-quality food, and he grows much of it on-site. The first thing that Blanc did upon arrival at Le Manoir in 1984 was establish the gardens, which now have more than 250 kinds of organic fruits and vegetables, from cabbage to lablab beans, which are native to Africa.
The hotel’s garden is as beautiful as it is productive, and Blanc has carved out spaces for a mushroom valley as well as a Japanese tea garden. A five-course lunch may include roasted cauliflower soup and beef served with braised Jacob’s ladder. Besides cookery classes for adults and children, gardening classes will take guests through 11 gardens and orchards and teach them how to grow microgreens and edible flowers.
Washington, Texas
The Inn at Dos Brisas started out as a private family retreat but opened as a luxury guest ranch in 2004. The nine-room property, tucked within 300 acres of pastureland halfway between Austin and Houston, is home to a 42-acre USDA-certified organic farm that specializes in heirloom fruits and seasonal vegetables. A berry patch, orchard and 7,000-square-foot greenhouse make the inn nearly self-sufficient. The general manager of Dos Brisas Farms, Steve King, who holds a Ph.D. in plant breeding, gives tours of the farm and greenhouse and offers tips on how to grow a successful vegetable garden yourself. Guests can enjoy a private dining experience in the heart of the farm or a seasonal menu at the inn’s restaurant. The winter menu can include a hydroponic lettuce salad with San Andreas cheese, as well as organic celery root baked in a salt crust.
Cumberland Island, Georgia
Wild horses outnumber people on Georgia’s remote Cumberland Island, and it is here that Greyfield Inn, once owned by a member of the Carnegie family, has its own 1.5-acre organic garden, which supplies the inn with herbs, produce, fruit, fresh flowers and honey. Culinary director Whitney Otawka makes the most of Greyfield Inn’s own produce as well as local seafood in dishes such as cucumber and buttermilk soup with pickled Georgia shrimp, or a summer salad made from cantaloupe, Mexican sour gherkins, micro basil and mint.
Walland, Tennessee
The legendary Blackberry Farm is just as famous for its elegant design as it is for its culinary offerings, all served up with Southern hospitality. Set in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, the hotel started as a vacation home and relaunched as a country inn with an emphasis on gastronomy.
Today the expanded resort sits on 4,200 acres, with its own sustainable farm, bakery, charcuterie and creamery — not to mention a team of gardeners, bakers and farmers to oversee it all. The dinner menus at The Barn are designed around what’s fresh from the garden. To savor the experience, enjoy a hearth-fried farm egg served with grilled cabbage and crispy chicken skin, or Nantucket Bay scallops with caramelized sunchokes. Guests can join master gardener John Coykendall to learn about seed preservation or take a farmstead tasting tour.
St. Kitts and Nevis, West Indies
When Belle Mont Farm debuted in 2015, it was a game changer for the region. While most Caribbean resorts rely on imported food, Belle Mont embraced sustainability. Spread over 400 acres of farmland, orchards and forest, the property sources 90 percent of its food on-site and from the surrounding area.
When guests walk around, they might spot a fruit tree with an “Eat me” sign on it — so go ahead and pick that mango. Guests can literally have a farm-to-table experience by booking a dinner at The Farm. A long communal dining table is set up in the midst of the farm, and diners can enjoy family-style platters of just-picked garden greens and roasted carrots along with papaya lamb stew, and braised chicken roulade.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
In the shadow of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, The Broadmoor is a classic family resort built on the site of a former dairy farm. Today the 5,000-acre, century-old property has its own greenhouse and gardens, which provide much of the produce for the resort’s 10 restaurants. The chefs are involved with the gardens and help choose the seeds for planting. The resulting produce ends up in dishes such as sunflower-crusted green asparagus, served with Broadmoor garden greens, sunflower seeds, sunchokes and Meyer lemon. The nearby Eagle’s Nest Ranch provides the resort with wagyu beef, and bees produce around 500 pounds of honey per year for the resort.
Sacred Valley, Peru
Situated in a corner of the Andes between Cusco and Machu Picchu, Peru’s Sacred Valley is where the Incas established their farmlands. It’s now home to Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba, which is set on 100 acres of rolling hills that include a 10-acre organic plantation.
Red and black quinoa, Urubamba giant corn, purple corn and potatoes are farmed the traditional way, with hand tools and oxen. Medicinal herbs such as field horsetail, mallow, spearmint, lavender and chamomile are also grown here and incorporated into treatments offered at the hotel’s Mayu Spa. During the Pindas Kkora Jampi massage, for example, organic cloth bags are filled with herbs and steamed to release the essential oils, then applied to the body.
Andrew Harper members have access to full travel-planning services through Andrew Harper Travel.
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