The Homestead Kitchen, Goathland - restaurant & holiday cottage
Excellent flavour, sustainability & food education
Growing their own food was always part of the plan when Cecily Fearnley and Peter Neville first opened their restaurant, The Homestead Kitchen, in the North York Moors village of Goathland in 2021.
Having converted an 18th-century farmhouse to create a welcoming restaurant and family home, the couple set about creating a kitchen garden to provide as much organic homegrown produce as they could.
Within a short time, The Homestead Kitchen has gained a strong following, with a Michelin Green Star and 3 AA Rosettes, thanks to its focus on sense of place, seasonality and sustainability.
Now that the kitchen garden is established, it's grown from those few raised beds to become a central source of the restaurant’s fresh produce. An edible hedgerow has been planted and there are now orderly rows of produce – everything from garlic, onions, dwarf beans, celeriac and strawberries – as well as a wildflower meadow. A polytunnel now houses tomatoes and cucumbers and the couple have taken on a five-acre field nearby to extend their food production even more.
The crates of freshly picked, humble fruit, vegetables and herbs deliver pocket rockets of flavour in the restaurant helped by Peter’s magic touch in creating uncomplicated dishes that let the ingredients sing. Even during the winter months when the garden’s bounty diminishes, there’s work put into pickling and preserving as much as possible so that homegrown is still on the menu.
Of course, the restaurant isn’t totally self-sufficient which is why Cecily and Peter work hard to source as much as they can locally whether its lobsters from Whitby, cheese from the Botton Creamery, meat from Radford's butchers or gin from a distillery in Whitby.
Rather than proud boasts, there’s something quietly careful and deeply thoughtful about The Homestead Kitchen’s approach to sustainability. The couple’s guiding principle for the restaurant is to be flavour-led and to have a ‘tread lightly’ approach towards living and working, which is why limiting food miles is so important.
Their efforts have led The Homestead to be one of the businesses involved in the North York Moors National Park’s pilot sustainability project, exploring what meaningful progress really looks like.
It chimes with Cecily and Peter’s honest approach where they’re looking at every aspect, even seemingly small things such as finding a use for the wax ends of candles to make firelighters, that can make a difference.
The project’s initial audit showed where The Homestead is doing well on sustainability: it scored 100% on the food and products. They are now looking at how to improve other aspects such as water management and insulation, without changing the building's character or the high level of service they offer.
Cecily and Peter have recently started work on a new project, moving an old shed into the middle of the kitchen garden where it will be re-developed as part of plans for a simple outdoor kitchen and event space where visitors will soon be able to enjoy new experiences and learn more about food, nutrition, gardening and sustainabiliy.
