A morning's drive
Everything on tonight's plate slept within an hour of here. That isn't a slogan; it's the supply chain.
The vegetables come from three farms in the valley, the flour from a mill on the river, the birds and the game from families we know by name. The whole map fits inside an hour's drive, which is the point — short roads mean fresh food and honest accounting of where it came from.
It is not always the cheapest way to buy, and it is never the easiest. But we would rather build the menu around who is nearby than write a menu first and truck in whatever it demands.
What proximity tastes like
Close food is picked later. A tomato that travels a hundred miles is picked hard and green; one picked that morning eight miles away comes in soft and finished, and you can taste every hour it stayed on the vine.
Proximity also changes the menu constantly, because it has to. When the good thing is only good for a week, the board follows the field — and the meal tastes like a particular place on a particular night, which is the whole idea.