Established in 2013, The Free Company is a farm and seasonal restaurant located at the foot of the Pentland Hills just outside Edinburgh. Run by brothers Angus and Charlie Buchanan-Smith, the restaurant serves a menu that shifts with the seasons, shaped by what’s growing in the nearby fields or ready in the butchery.
The Free Company’s ethos is rooted in the revival of forgotten rural knowledge and a commitment to promoting progressive agricultural methods and is a working model of restaurant and farm as one regenerative system — where food is grown, reared, harvested, butchered, cooked and shared in one continuous, thoughtful cycle.
The Estrella Damm Sustainability Award is judged by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), which was particularly impressed by the restaurant’s holistic approach to sustainability and working within its environment. Some 65% of what is served in the restaurant is grown in its five-acre no-dig garden using compost made from garden and food waste, spent coffee and sheep wool, while native-breed livestock is reared on pasture and butchered whole. Its pigs are fed on hay, veg scraps and brewery mash and more than 5,000 native trees - including 4,000 this year - have been planted as part of a new silvopasture system.
The SRA also points to The Free Company’s circular thinking, where spent coffee becomes kvass, roasting beds and seed compost; cider is produced from the fruits of a neighbour’s disused orchard; and a new restaurant extension was built from wind-felled timber and insulated with their own sheep’s wool. A closed-loop septic system filters wastewater to drinking quality and 300 tonnes of compost are returned to the soil each year. Single-use packaging is banned.
In order to ensure team members remain connected to the whole system they spend six days each year working in other parts of the business. Through seasonal feasts, more than 300 school visits in the past year and internships, it also welcome others into the process.
Says the SRA: “The Free Company isn’t trying to scale; they’re digging deeper, and helping others imagine what hospitality can be.”
The Free Company’s ethos is rooted in the revival of forgotten rural knowledge and a commitment to promoting progressive agricultural methods and is a working model of restaurant and farm as one regenerative system — where food is grown, reared, harvested, butchered, cooked and shared in one continuous, thoughtful cycle.
The Estrella Damm Sustainability Award is judged by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), which was particularly impressed by the restaurant’s holistic approach to sustainability and working within its environment. Some 65% of what is served in the restaurant is grown in its five-acre no-dig garden using compost made from garden and food waste, spent coffee and sheep wool, while native-breed livestock is reared on pasture and butchered whole. Its pigs are fed on hay, veg scraps and brewery mash and more than 5,000 native trees - including 4,000 this year - have been planted as part of a new silvopasture system.
The SRA also points to The Free Company’s circular thinking, where spent coffee becomes kvass, roasting beds and seed compost; cider is produced from the fruits of a neighbour’s disused orchard; and a new restaurant extension was built from wind-felled timber and insulated with their own sheep’s wool. A closed-loop septic system filters wastewater to drinking quality and 300 tonnes of compost are returned to the soil each year. Single-use packaging is banned.
In order to ensure team members remain connected to the whole system they spend six days each year working in other parts of the business. Through seasonal feasts, more than 300 school visits in the past year and internships, it also welcome others into the process.
Says the SRA: “The Free Company isn’t trying to scale; they’re digging deeper, and helping others imagine what hospitality can be.”
