Homegrown hotels that harvest their own produce

By Mark Chesnut

Just because you’re staying at a hotel doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy truly fresh cuisine. An array of hotels now grow and harvest their own produce on-site, allowing guests to savor tasty home-grown meals, whether they’re enveloped in business travel or enjoying a relaxed Florida vacation.

At the Grande Lakes resort complex in Orlando, visitors staying at both the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes and the The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes can sample honey produced in the nearby apiary, which opened last year. In addition, herbs and produce grown at the hotel garden are used to make items including ketchup, barbecue sauce, spice rubs, preserves and pickles.

Options further north include the Inn at Perry Cabin, a luxurious Orient-Express hotel set in a manor house on the eastern shore in St. Michaels, Maryland. Fresh lavender grown on the property adds fragrant floral hints to a signature cake made with Valrhona Manjari,a gourmet chocolate.

In Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, foodies might consider staying at Casa Velas Hotel & Ocean Club, where vacationers as well as visitors using the on-site convention center can taste cuisine made with products from the Casa Velas Botanical Garden. More than 30 varieties of organic plants grow in the garden — adding fresh flavor to mouthwatering options like agua fresca (a beverage made with cucumber, basil and lime) as well herb-infused Provençal filet mignon and fresh local seafood marinated in a blend of olive oil, organic thyme, rosemary, basil oregano and spearmint.

Travelers jetting over to Marrakech, meanwhile, can check in at La Mamounia, a luxurious hotel setin a Moroccan palace, where the on-property garden grows turnips, lettuce, herbs and 15 varieties of tomatoes. Coriander and fragrant verbena, which are popular in Moroccan cuisine, are among the most-used ingredients in the hotel’s gourmet menus.

Related resources

• Orlando hotels
• Maryland hotels
• Puerto Vallarta hotels
• Marrakech hotels

Mark Chesnut is a travel writer, editor and publisher of LatinFlyer.com, which focuses on travel to Latin America. Now he’s very hungry.

Tagged: Florida, Hotels, Mexico