Farm to Table Part 2: Flawd
‘It slowly changes the landscape of the city. It changes the way people work and it changes the way chefs think, and that then changes the way people think in their dining rooms. It's a knock-on effect.’
Back in October ‘22, I visited Cinderwood Market Garden, a one-acre plot of land in Cheshire growing to regenerative principles, supplying restaurants in Manchester and beyond. Over the course of a couple of hours and a chat with head grower Michael Fitzsimmons, it became clear that way beyond the remit of championing the importance of good produce for flavour, Cinderwood was leading the way on much bigger topics, such as how we move forwards with our food system and how we interact with our environment—all of which is explored in ‘Farm to Table: Cinderwood Market Garden’.
Part 2 brings us to the table—specifically, a cosy corner of Flawd, the neighbourhood wine bar founded by Cinderwood directors Joe Otway, Richard Cossins and Daniel Craig Martin. I’m sat with head chef Joe to get his insight into how it all came about, and what farm-to-table means when it comes to the actual food.
‘There’s no point in growing veg just for yourself. Cinderwood was set up to supply the food community of Manchester.’
Like so many great projects, Cinderwood began in those dark early days of 2020, when the team were doing ‘whatever we could to keep afloat’. When they weren’t selling cans of Rio and bacon butties to builders, they were putting in shifts at Organic North, where they were able to study the market and supply chain. It led to the realisation that ‘agriculture is really fucking difficult to make viable’. The sheer scale of production needed simply to cover overheads, let alone ‘make a difference’, was sobering, and a tough ask of their one-acre plot. So the purpose of Cinderwood shifted:
‘It’s about trying to create a system that doesn’t just benefit yourself. Can you grow veg and make a system that can compete with agri business and full-scale commercial agriculture? It involves getting more people access to that veg.’
Enter Flawd. Surreptitiously showcasing Cinderwood’s produce in an understated but always fantastic menu of seasonal small plates, the team are bringing their veg to the people under the guise of having a bloody good time. This is no holier-than-thou ‘eat your organic greens’ establishment. Chilled, friendly, a little bit disco—this is a place to have fun, not be schooled.
Though the menu is 100% organic (around 95% of which comes from Cinderwood in summer), it’s not presented as such to the thousands of customers they’re engaging with each month. ‘We don’t really shout about it that much’ explains Joe, with the team preferring to ‘just put the food on the table’ and allow people to discover for themselves how much more flavour they’re getting from the humble lettuce in front of them than they’ve come to expect.
‘That was what we wanted Flawd to be—as approachable as humanly possible. We didn’t want to exclude anyone, or to make it feel exclusive. If you want to spend money on a bottle you can and if you want dinner you can have the full menu. But anybody should be able to come in here and feel comfortable and have a great time and have a glass of wine that feels affordable.’
It’s an inclusive attitude, and one that seems rooted in a genuine passion for sharing what they enjoy with as many people as possible. This is a welcome approach in an industry that’s often, and not unfairly, criticised as elitist.
Much has been made of the tiny kitchen space here, but Joe seems upbeat about how much you can do with a toastie maker and a pressure cooker. He shows me the back, which pretty much consists of a single fridge and said pressure cooker, inside of which is a piglet shoulder bubbling away in milk (‘an experiment for New Year’s Eve’). Stripping things back requires quality and confidence to pull off—there’s nothing to hide behind.
Out front is similarly low-key. Decor is kept to a minimum, all the better for showcasing work from local artists such as Freya Wysocki, as well as Flawd’s event artwork, all of which is designed by multi-talented member of the front of house team Meg Williams. A nod also to the soundtrack—we all love the Stone Roses but an upbeat playlist liberally scattered with African Funk is a joyful reprieve from the ubiquitous indie you get elsewhere.
There’s a certain DIY creative energy here that’s so needed after so long of big-money concept restaurants, as well as an enthusiasm for championing other skilled artists and makers. Joe is as excited to showcase the kitchen’s other suppliers as he is their own produce (their sourdough is from next-door-neighbour Pollen and their cheese is from The Crafty Cheese Man because ‘it’s simply the best cheese you can get’). And of course, their regular winemaker events showcase producers who work with the land with integrity and care.
But whilst they’ve smashed the formula with Flawd, the broader goal of getting more restaurants on board with Cinderwood produce has not happened overnight. Supply from the market garden has been tricky to maintain during the winter months (they’re taking on another ⅓ acre this year to scale up). It’s also been hard to on-board chefs to this new way of working. To Joe, who worked closely with growers during his time in Copenhagen and missed that relationship upon moving here, it’s ‘the only way to work’. But change is slow, and it’s taken two years of hard graft, ‘knocking down doors trying to get people to buy our spring onions’, to build a database of partner restaurants and chefs ‘who really understand how it works’.
Yet it’s starting to have, slowly but surely, a ripple effect. He tells me of excited chats with a new influx of chefs hungry for what Cinderwood are offering, and of a Whatsapp group where ‘we’re all engaging with each other about what’s coming up, what I’m excited about, what people might want us to grow, how much will be available of this, what’s tasting good right now and what people should put on their menu.’ A sense of a growing community is what I come away with.
It’s worth noting here that Joe buys Cinderwood produce at the same price as everyone else, and that the team don’t benefit financially from the market garden, but rather run it as a CIC. He is emphatic that it’s not just about having the best produce for himself, but ‘very much trying to change the way that everyone else works so that we can all keep moving forward’. It’s an admirable commitment to the local food scene.
‘For us it’s about creating access, and on a bigger picture creating a better food community, so that the whole of Manchester moves forward together, because ultimately that’s what we believe in—if you can have access to better produce, if everyone has better access to that produce, then we all move forward, rather than just yourself. And you can help others to basically make their life easier and to cook better food.’
This sentiment brings me to a question that plagues me—is it possible to change the food system for everyone, not just the minority privileged to be able to eat in great restaurants? I ask if they think it’s possible to challenge Big Agriculture, and Daniel chimes in with the perfect answer, checking my pessimism: ‘you have to believe it’s possible, otherwise what’s the point?’.
It’s a complex issue. He explains that, ‘the deeper you go into it the more you unravel the amount of things and people and policies and levels of infrastructure that need to change’. Trying to instigate that change is a bit of a David/Goliath situation, with ‘large-scale industrial agriculture so intertwined in how the government runs’ that it’s very difficult for ‘certain initiatives supporting small-scale farming to become fully integrated into policy-making [...] there’s zero support.’ Nevertheless, I’m met with the same determination and optimism I got from Michael at Cinderwood:
‘Nobody’s going to make one fell swoop and change the game, but it’s just about trying to do your part. If we can inspire one farmer to start their own project, or a chef to think differently when they order food or open a restaurant, that’s something. You just have to take it day by day and hope that as you continue to learn and grow, things will continue to blossom in the city.’
Joe echoes the idea that leading by example is the most powerful thing they can do at the moment. Whether farming or cooking, they’re ‘trying to make it attractive for younger people, and make them realise that it is a valuable lifestyle, it is a career path, it is a great industry.’
People like Jane Oglesby (the land steward who’s livestock farm Cinderwood sits on and who’s supported the project from the start) are the ‘final piece of the puzzle’. According to the guys, accessing land is the biggest obstacle, but there’s ‘opportunity all over the place [...] people out there that have shitloads of land, and it’s just sitting there doing nothing. And they could be offering that land to be doing something good.’ Joe lists Field 28, Nama Yasai and Flourish as the kind of places we need more of: great produce draws chefs that have the ability to produce dishes that inspire the public. A trickle down effect, if you will. It’s a slow process. ‘It feels like it’s taken years to get here’, Joe says of the conversations he’s finally having with like-minded chefs, but ‘things do feel like they’re moving in the right direction’.
Next month, the team open Higher Ground as an ‘agriculturally focused bistro’. The idea is to prove that you can scale it up: ‘you can do 80-90 covers a night, in a bistro setting, with an agricultural mindset.’ Furthering their relationship with Jane, they’ll be incorporating her animals throughout the menu, as well as, of course, Cinderwood produce. Years of determinedly chipping away, adapting, pushing, seems to be suddenly coming to fruition. It’s an exciting time, both for the team and for the city. With the restaurant due to open on February 24th, the build is going ‘faster than [they] can keep up with. It’s happening.’ It certainly is.