Where we buy our food...

The Victoria’s shopping list

We take a lot of time and care in choosing who supplies raw produce to the Victoria. As a company we aim to be as environmentally friendly as we can and this in turn is a demand we make of our suppliers.

We also look for suppliers who take an ethical view of their business. Much of our meat and what farmed fish we use is RSPCA ‘freedom food’ accredited, we also use both Fair Trade and Rain Forest Alliance products.

Our head chef, Paul Merrett is an ambassador for both Freedom Foods and Compassion in World Farming.

Very little of our produce comes from the ‘Big 3’ markets (Billingsgate, Smithfield and Covent Garden) who have traditionally supplied most London restaurants. Nowadays the trend is to get products from ‘much closer to source’.

We make all our own bread at The Victoria. The flour we use is made from organic wheat milled at Claybrook Water Mill in Leicestershire – one of the few remaining working water powered stone mills in the country.

Several farmers and small family butchers supply us direct with meat. Our beef is reared in the West Country - the breed is called a South Devon. Our butcher selects the animals he intends to supply us with whilst they are alive in the field. They are fed on grass right through their life (this is unusual in colder parts of the British Isles where they are brought inside and fed on grain). After slaughter the carcass is hung untouched for 21 days before being butchered into primal joints and sent to us.

We also use Rose Veal on the menu. Our veal is organically reared in Oxfordshire and is a by product of the dairy trade.

Our Pork comes from a farm called Dingley Dell. The breeds are Saddleback and Gloucester Old Spot. The pigs are kept in an area of Oak woodland.

The venison we use is from Earl of Devon’s Powderham Estate on the river Exe. The meat is from the Fallow deer which is a little less gamey than Red deer though still a rich and tasty meat.

Nearly all our fish is purchased from 2 harbourside markets - Brixham and Falmouth. Some of the fish we use, such as Bass, is line caught but the fish that is trawled comes from sustainable stocks.
The Crab we use is caught in Start Bay in the West Country and our mussels are from the Norfolk coast.
We use 2 varieties of oysters. Our rock oysters (Crassostrea gigas) are farmed in the Royal Bay of Gruville on the Island of Jersey in some of Europe’s cleanest water and our Native oysters (Ostrea edulis) come from Loch Ryan in South West Scotland which is the largest bed of wild oysters in Scotland.

The vegetables we use are nearly all grown in this country on a small farm in Surrey. We have regular contact with the farmer who makes sure we are using the best available fruit and vegetables in any given season. We also make use of a professional forager! We are sent occasional deliveries of wild seaweed, cobnuts, nettles, wild mushrooms and woodland herbs amongst other wild hedgerow delicacies from around the country.

Our cooking oil is all stored and recycled into bio fuel by a local company specialising in this area. The rest of our rubbish is recycled whereever possible.

Finally the coffee we serve each morning and after dinner carries the Rainforest Alliance endorsement.

We are always keen to discover new products so do drop us a line if you think your spuds are better than ours!