Food review: Farm Collective, Farringdon

The Farm Collective is in Farringdon on the corner of the appropriately named Cowcross Street where it joins Smithfield Market. Without going all Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on you I’m someone who likes to know where my food comes from (and I don’t mean ASDA) as I can’t stand bland and in my mind flavour, not quantity, is king which means making sure animals are looked after properly and that produce is properly grown and handled.

Having been to some decent restaurants in my time, and plenty of bad ones, I like to think that I know good food when I taste it and here, not a 5-minute train ride from my office, was a place that was saying “lets not forget that all of our produce tastes like food should; full or flavour, rich in goodness. Our food had credentials and it tastes brilliant.”. A frequent claim, but is it really true?

Having found the Farm Collective, a little tricky given the numbering scheme in Cowcross Street, I found it hard  to settle on a choice because they did seem to have all of the kinds of things I like and I eventually chose to go for the sausage and mash, seeing as I’ve probably tasted sausages from every end of the spectrum, both good and bad, so it’d make a good benchmark. 

Farm Collective is primarily a take-away although there’s a bench outside to sit on and a bar at the back with stools should you rather stay to eat, which in this instance I did. Taking a seat at the bar I tucked in and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve found that lesser sausages can have a variety of flavours and aftertastes that have nothing to do with meat but with these I got exactly what I wanted and happily devoured both the sausages and the creamy mashed potatos and began to reflect on what food can be, without turning into some kind of pretentious food luvvie or using phrases like “bursting with flavour“. The move in the food world, egged on by TV chefs, seems to be for food with a conscience and one of the pleasures in eating somewhere like the Farm Collective is that you know that your food wasn’t produced by the lowest cost provider but by people who genuinely care about what they produce.

I asked Craig, co-founder of the Farm Colletive with Dom, where my sausages had come from so he pointed me in the direction of Plantation Pigs where MD Hugh Norris has this to say about his pigs:
“Pigs are fascinating. Their curious shape, those improbably tough rubbery snouts perfectly designed for digging, their inquisitive and playful behaviour and not least their ridiculous attempts at sprinting. I am captivated by these marvellous animals.”
Doesn’t sound like someone in it for a quick buck or a slogan produced by a marketing focus group. I think I’m liking him already…
“We breed all our own pigs. We use ginger- and black-haired animals that can withstand the heat of a summer’s day and cold winter nights. Sows must be good mothers to rear their litters with the minimum of intervention from our stockmen. The breeds we use confer great qualities on the pork making it succulent and tasty. Its flavour will enhance both complex and simple dishes to provide a delicious, satisfying meal. Our pigs live outside in the fields. In summer they bathe in mud wallows to protect themselves from the sun. In winter we provide deep beds of clean straw for them to bury themselves in to keep warm. Plenty of fresh air and exercise helps to keep our pigs healthy and reduces the need for medication.”

So for £6.00, the price of a half-decent pub meal, I’d got something that was satisfying not just my lunchtime hunger but also going some way to supporting decent British farmers producing decent and tasty products.

I’m sold. I’ll be going back and working my way around the menu, although I’m going to have to try and fight off the sausage and mash temptation for sure. For the early risers they sell a variety of breakfast items and for those not into the hot food they have sandwiches and salads with ingredients as carefully sourced as my sausages. And they do deliveries too…

The Farm Collective
http://www.farmcollective.com/
91 Cowcross Street,
EC1M 6BH

Plantation Pigs
http://www.plantationpigs.co.uk