Moray restaurant focuses entirely on local food
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A Moray restaurant has launched a new menu with entirely local ingredients because it reckons that's how to guarantee the best flavours.
Everything on offer at The Station Hotel has been grown or reared within a 60-mile radius of Rothes.
The man behind the menu is Henry Lapington, the hotel's newly appointed head chef.
The 27-year-old said: "You can really taste the difference when things are local.
"I'm absolutely convinced of that.
"All our ingredients are locally produced.
"That's a different thing to just being locally sourced, which can sometimes involve produce being transported quite a long way to get here.
"The difference in flavour fact is particularly noticeable with vegetables and fruit.
"Strawberries are sweeter when they haven't been forced grown.
"Beetroot and the carrots have an earthier taste because they have more nutrients in them."
Henry claims the local approach is also more cost effective because it cuts out the middle man.
So if you order pork at the Station Hotel it comes from a farm in Ballindalloch.
Order beef and it's from Mill of Tynet, Archiestown or just down the road at Smallburn Farm.
Even the buffalo on the menu comes from Thorabella Farm at Dallas.
Just about the only thing that's neither grown nor reared in Moray is the halibut – and even that's landed just along the coast in Peterhead.
Henry is a former Forres Academy pupil who started work at the Station Hotel in January last year.
He said: "I'm a great believer in supporting local farms and producers.
"The pandemic has shown just how important they are.
"We only work with producers who can guarantee ethical standards.
"In addition, so there's no waste we use the whole of the animal.
"Therefore, for instance, we turn the pig's skin into pork crackers, while its fat is rendered down and goes into our oat cakes.
"It's all about being more sustainable.
"At the very start of lockdown some shoppers were panicking because the supermarkets were running out of various products such as eggs.
"But the irony is they could have gone and got some from a local farm."
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