a new order | botanic sanctuary antwerp

Jared Wybrown and Raissa van Dijk.

Nothing compares to the feeling of purchasing fresh vegetables, soft bread and local produce – especially when all we know is where to find these at larger market chains. West London, Belgravia specifically, has gained a new reason to reconsider the weekly food shop. London Epicerie, the latest venture from London Cheesemongers founders Jared Wybrow and Raissa van Dijk, has opened on Ebury Street with a proposition that combines the neighbourhood grocer, specialist food shop and the type of place where buying a loaf of bread can unexpectedly turn into dinner for six. 

The concept grows out of more than a decade spent building London Cheesemongers, an independent artisan shop on Pavilion Road in Chelsea that originally started when Wybrow maxed out a personal credit card to buy 200kg of Le Gruyère AOP. Having built a reputation around a tightly curated, seasonally rotating counter of 30 to 50 cheeses, Wybrow and van Dijk developed deep, long-standing relationships with independent growers across Britain and Europe. Instead of keeping those specialist connections confined to cheese, London Epicerie expands the idea into a full food shop, bringing seasonal fruit and vegetables, fresh bread, farmhouse cheese, charcuterie, wine, dairy and pantry staples into the same space.

“London Epicerie was created from a belief that people shouldn’t have to choose between convenience and quality,” explain the founders. “By bringing together trusted producers, transparency and expert curation, we aim to make better food easier to buy and enjoy every day. We hope that small, informed choices can contribute to a healthier and more sustainable food system.” 

James Retief.

James Retief.

Among the available products, Westcombe Dairy supplies clothbound Cheddar from Somerset, while Alpine cheesemakers bring L’Etivas raw-milk cheeses made in mountain chalets during the summer months. Alma Bakery provides bread, Noja Progetto Agricolo contributes ancient-grain pasta and Piro brings early-harvest Tuscan olive oil. There is also traditional balsamic vinegar from Bonini, Maison Marc cornichons and charcuterie sourced through Ham & Cheese Co., a long-standing partner of London Cheesemongers. 

The founders have taken a similarly considered approach to the people behind the shelves. Wine Director Daniel Garcia Thomas brings experience from The Goring Hotel and Brat, where he spent four years as Head Sommelier, and has shaped the wine selection around growers with character and a clear connection to their land. Nutritional Therapist Edmund Swinburn adds another perspective, helping make the store’s approach to nutrition a lot more practical and engaging.

Wybrow brings more than three decades in food to the project, having worked as a chef before moving into specialist retail at Neal’s Yard Dairy and founding London Cheesemongers in 2014. Van Dijk, who has a background in clinical psychology as well as training in fitness and yoga, has spent the past three years managing the cheesemonger alongside Wybrow, bringing a focus on customer experience and the relationship between food and wellbeing.

James Retief.

The shop itself was designed by Deidra Hodgson, taking cues from traditional European food stores without recreating one as a museum piece. Natural light, oak, warm stone and a restrained material palette give the space a contemporary feel, while shelving, crates and preparation areas are built directly into the architecture. A subtle grid runs through the interior, giving the shelves their own rhythm as customers move between fresh produce, pantry goods and the more specialist finds. 

London Epicerie is now open seven days a week from 8am to 9pm at 65–69 Ebury Street, Belgravia. And yes, you can still go in for just one thing.

Find out more here.

photography. courtesy of James Retief
words. Gennaro Costanzo

There is a priceless charm that only nature can provide. It’s weaved within the hum of a river flowing over centuries of stone and in the distant chime of cow bells as they graze among alpine meadows. This is what it feels like to traverse through the winding roads that lead to Lech am Arlberg in Austria. The landscape is perhaps the closest things you’ll find to a storybook paradise, filled with lush greenery, roaming horses and trees that tower so tall, you’re reminded of how awe-inspiring the world is outside of a big city.

Although winter is high season for the Austrian Alps, there is just as much to explore during summer, like breathtaking mountain views, serene hikes, and if you stop by Rote Wand Gourmet hotel, there’s a foodie hotspot nestled within the town’s magical landscape. Ran by Josef Walch, Rote Wand is a picturesque wooden property with a bold design sensibility. Inside, there’s a contrast of alpine practicality with eccentric touches like crimson hallways that look straight out of a Kubrick movie.

“When we built our first underground connection between the main house and what are now the family lodges—formerly the old horse stable—we wanted to reference traditional methods of protecting wood. In the past, timber was sometimes treated with animal blood as a natural weatherproofing technique,” Walch tells Schön! about their signature red. “We even considered recreating this historical approach, but quickly realised it was not exactly the most practical solution. Instead, we chose a deep red colour that visually recalls this tradition while giving it a contemporary interpretation.”

There is a fluidity between Rote Wand and the environment that surrounds it. The mountainous backdrop informs every detail of the hotel down to its name. “The name Rote Wand already existed long before the hotel. It refers to the beautiful mountain at the end of the Zug Valley, near Lake Formarin. In the afternoon sunlight, the mountain takes on a beautiful reddish glow because of its mineral composition,” explains Walch.

Rote Wand has built a reputation for attracting the crème de la crème of gastronomy. They hold several culinary events throughout the year with menus curated by world class chefs. “Chef’s Table has become one of the leading culinary destinations in the Alps, and Rote Wand has built a strong international reputation. For ambitious young chefs, working here provides an exceptional platform to develop their skills and gain international recognition,” says Walch.

It’s an amazing playground for a foodie to try local wine and gourmet cuisine from talent across the globe. Schön! visited during the hotel’s Sommerfest in June which included a diverse array of food-centred experiences like dinner roulette where guests taste the menus of various chefs at different locations across the property. Guglielmo Chiarapini (Ristorante Gilioli), Francesco Dolcetta (FEG Kitchen) and Laura Santosuosso (Sandi Ristorante) collaborated on a menu that reimagined authentic Italian cuisine using ingredients forged from the local land. It was experimental and impressive, using unexpected ingredients to replicate familiar Italian flavours. While Julian Stieger crafted a refined local menu for the Chef’s Table, accompanied by wines from Weinskandal.

Rote Wand exists in tandem with the local environment, so on walks throughout the area you’ll find the wooden home where the chickens sleep and the newborn calves of the cows who produce the milk and butter for the hotel. Everything about the area is interconnected and tells a story of the people who care for the land. “We do not see ourselves as a hotel that simply protects local culture, traditions, heritage, or the environment. We actually live these values every single day. We are not preserving traditions simply because they are old. We believe they remain highly relevant today and can play an important role in shaping the future,” says Walch.

The property is a family affair and the local community is tight knit. Thanks to Walch’s deeply personal connection to the area, there is an ethos preservation rather than exploitation that the tourism industry is so desperately in need of. “Tourism can only be successful in the long term if the local community also benefits. When people in the region thrive, they support tourism, and this creates a healthy and sustainable ecosystem for everyone,” he says. Community so clearly sits at the heart of every single decision in the area, from what time local buses are allowed to operate to preserving the architecture that makes Lech am Arlberg so memorable. 

photography. Rote Wand Gourmet Hotel/ Lucy Deverall
words. Shama Nasinde

Fowlescombe Farm is set on a centuries’ old estate. Photography. Fisho Underwood

Farm-to-table is one of the most overused phrases in food, but at Fowlescombe Farm, it is also the most literal. Dinner here begins before you sit down. It begins in the garden, where the herbs for your broth are still growing. It begins in the salt chamber, where the beef has been resting for weeks. It begins, really, in the soil. By the time the food reaches the table, it has already travelled a long way, and yet not very far.

The day starts before the kitchen does. By the time Executive Head Chef Elly Wentworth arrives at nine, she has already been on her phone for hours: not dealing with emails and reservations, but in early morning conversations with Shelley Hutcheon, the Head Gardener, working out what was picked overnight and what needs to come in before service. The menu does not exist yet. It will by the time guests sit down. That, at Fowlescombe, is entirely the point.

Left. Head Gardener Shelley Hutcheon Right. British Longhorn cattle. Photography. Jon Tonks

Fowlescombe is a luxury boutique hotel in Devon, close to the wild landscapes of Dartmoor national park and not far from the sandy beaches of Southwest England, but it’s also been a working farm for centuries and, today, a regenerative farm as well. Guests stay on the farm itself, in the middle of working land, kitchen gardens and open countryside. At the centre of the experience is The Refectory, the dining space headed by Wentworth, whom you might recognise from television shows like ‘MasterChef’ and ‘Great British Menu’.

Left. Produce from the kitchen garden Right. Elly Wentworth in The Refectory kitchen. Photography. Jon Tonks

Wentworth came to Fowlescombe from a background in Michelin-level fine dining: white tablecloths, tasting menus, the kind of kitchens where every element is controlled, anticipated, known in advance. What Fowlescombe asked of her was almost the opposite. “We change the menu daily,” she says, “which back in the day wasn’t such a thing.” The tasting menu was a thing, à la carte was a thing, but a kitchen that built its entire offering around whatever the farm and garden produced that morning was something else entirely. “I wasn’t too sure it was going to work,” Wentworth admits, “but it’s been amazing.”

Goats are not farmed at Fowlescombe but help to keep weeds and brush at bay, eliminating the need for pesticides. Photography. Jon Tonks

Her finesse and Michelin-starred training are not wasted here but simply applied differently. She cannot put salmon on the menu. She will not use avocado. If an ingredient cannot meet the same standard of provenance as the farm meat, it does not belong. “It means you’re really focusing heavily on the garden,” she says, “what we have in, when it’s going to be growing, when we need it”. The constraint has become the creative engine.

Planning a menu at Fowlescombe is less a fixed process than an ongoing conversation. Wentworth knows when the beef is sent to dry age for 21 days and that it will spend longer still in the salt chamber before the prime cuts reach the kitchen. The fish, sourced through a free diver who is the only person in the UK diving to 40 feet without equipment, arrives according to what is in season that particular month. Seabass disappears for five months of the year and the menu moves with it. “The ethos of the fish needs to be the same as with the meat,” Wentworth explains, “the same principles, the same regenerative story.”

Fish is sourced from a free diver and the farm produces its own meat. Photography. Jon Tonks

What this means in practice is a kitchen that thinks in systems rather than in dishes. Trimmings from the globe artichokes go to the compost. Scallop shells are dried in the sun and laid across the farm. Coffee grounds from service, eggshells ground to powder, bones simmered for stock and then burned are all used by Hutcheon to feed the soil. Seaweed from the scallop supplier is steeped for two weeks to make a nutrient tea for the herb beds. “Anything that can be put onto the waste, we put into the compost,” Wentworth says. It is not a talking point for the menu. It is just how things work.

A harvest from the kitchen garden. Photography. Jon Tonks

The seasonal gaps are where things get even more interesting. Spring and summer bring a kind of abundance that can feel almost overwhelming. The beans, the new potatoes, the elderflower and wild garlic arrive all at once, faster than the kitchen can use them. Wentworth has been building reserves: apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, sweet cicely, oils made from flowers that last only five weeks of the year. “When it comes to winter,” she says, “and you have turnips, leeks, beetroot and a very limited amount of food, these pickles and preserves and oils take you through.” It is the logic of preservation applied to a fine dining context: you bank what you have when you have it, so the menu does not hollow out when the land goes quiet.

The menu at The Refectory changes daily. Photography. Jon Tonks

Some of the ingredients that have surprised her most are the ones she grew herself. Globe artichokes came at Hutcheon’s suggestion. Wentworth tried them, committed, and now has more than she expected, although they are still a luxury: “There are only five at a time, so we serve those five, and then we wait a couple more weeks for the next five.” The guests who happen to be in the house at the right moment are the only ones who get them. Perennial kiwis have just gone in. The English wasabi is growing. Padrón peppers will be dried and brined and dehydrated into chilli powder used throughout the year.  These are, Wentworth says, the “little things that tell the story of what we’re trying to achieve at the farm”.

The dish that has come to define the kitchen is the Fowlescombe Broth. It has been on the menu for two months and Wentworth does not think it is coming off. Made over two days from everything coming out of the garden, vegetable trimmings pressed and cooked off and burned, vegetables added for depth and colour, it is entirely plant based and, by all accounts, one of the most requested things on the table. Chefs pick the herbs they want to infuse it with each night: one evening Vietnamese coriander and lemon verbena, the next, geranium and basil chosen from five varieties growing in the kitchen garden. Guests who stay for several nights find themselves part of the rotation, the chefs explaining each night why they chose what they chose. “The [guests] almost become part of the story at the same time,” Wentworth tells us.

The Refectory. Photography. Jon Tonks

The Refectory is an intimate space seating a maximum of 18 guests, with the kitchen opening directly into the room. There is no separation between the people cooking and the people eating, which changes something fundamental about the experience, both for the diners and the chefs. As the diners watch the chefs adding the herbs that they picked before service to the broths, the butter, the bread, “The guests can really see the chefs’ love,” Wentworth says. She describes guests asking questions, chefs answering them and evenings that end with something resembling familiarity: “By the time they leave, it’s almost family.”

The Refectory. Photography. Jon Tonks

Fowlescombe has been open for a year. It has the quality of somewhere that knows what it is but is still discovering how far that goes. Wentworth is already thinking about the winter, about what she is preserving now so that January still has something to say. The kiwis should be ready by the end of summer. The bones will start going back into the soil.

The guests, for their part, tend to leave having understood something they did not arrive knowing: not just that food can be seasonal, but what that actually means when the person who grew the ingredient and the person who cooked it are in the same room, pouring your broth and explaining why tonight’s herb is different from last night’s. “I just hope they understand our story,” Wentworth says, “that we take care and pride in what we do.” She does not need them to remember every dish, only that the care was there, and that they felt it.

Grazing patterns are used to regulate the soil, as seen here with Tamworth pigs. Photography. Jon Tonks

Read more about Fowlescombe Farm here.

words. Lola Carron
edit. Huma Humayun
photography. Jon Tonks and Fisho Underwood