8 Truly Farm- To- Table Restaurants

A few years ago chef Ryan Hardy bought Rendezvous, a 15-acre farm about 2 hours outside of Aspen, to grow produce and raise livestock for his delicious, locally-driven restaurant. Drawing inspiration from the farm and other regionally-sourced ingredients, Hardy creates inventive and healthy culinary masterpieces for his guests, bringing them the explosive and lively tastes of the Rockies.

At his restaurants Cinque Terre and Vignola, Chef Lee Skawinski often cooks with ingredients he harvested that day from the restaurants' farm Grandview. The turnip-and-potato mash served alongside braised short ribs is a house favorite. (He also hosts an annual Harvest Dinner in the farm's gardens where he prepares a five-course menu highlighting Maine ingredients. )

On Chef Brian Scheehser's ten-acre sustainable farm, his roster of vegetables and fruits includes ten varieties of winter squash, six varieties of apples, seven varieties of blueberries and three varieties of raspberries. At the restaurant, he pairs the farm's fruits and vegetables with fresh meat, fish and fowl from artisanal producers.

Long Meadow Ranch Winery & Farmstead seems to do it all: raise 350 heads of cattle for grass-fed beef; grow purple basil, golden beets and heirloom tomatoes; create blends of organic, award-winning olive oils; and produce wine from their own grapes. Chef Seamus Feeley incorporates all of these fantastic ingredients into the menu at Farmstead restaurant.

Almost all the produce from Summerland Farms is used at Chef Ann Quatrano's restaurants, with each one getting an amount proportional to the number of guests and season. Restaurant staff is often found working on the farm to get some fresh air and hang out with the six Nubian nanny goats, two pigs, turkeys, dogs and horses.

In 2004, James Beard-nominated Chef Alex Young began a small garden to grow better quality food and reconnect with nature. That garden is now a sustainable farm that revives almost-extinct heirloom corn varieties and raises old breeds of hogs and cattle alongside 130 varieties of 27 types of vegetables. All are also sold at a seasonal farmers market in the restaurant's parking lot.

Blackberry Farms, home to an idyllically-located and enchanting hotel, goes beyond providing guests with fresh, naturally-produced foods by trying to connect them with the historical roots and origins of the foods they are eating. Each of the 500 varieties of produce grown has a known background and family history; guests can visit the garden and choose to partake in some of the farm work, essentially helping to produce food that they'll eat in the restaurant.

Husband-and-wife team, Chris Kurth and Chef Ana Sortun, are behind the organic and ecologically-minded Siena Farms that supplies some of Boston's top restaurants – O Ya, No. 9 Park, Hungry Mother, and of course, Oleana. Named after their daughter Siena, the farm also sells produce at the Copley Square Farmers Market.