Great news for Stockport, it's got itself a Michelin Star,
but it's a 'Green' Michelin Star.
Now, what is a Green Michelin Star,
and which restaurant has got it?
Well, I'm going to go down this dirty-looking alley
and find out.
Oh, here we are.
This is Where the Light Gets In,
home to the new Green Michelin Star.
More on that in just a moment, but turn around,
have a little look.
This is what used to be their dining space.
It's now a store, it looks perfect,
almost like it was designed to be a store,
so we'll talk stars in a minute, but for now,
let's find out what they've got on offer.
Ah, Sam Buckley, owner of Where the Light Gets In,
chief onion chopper.
Hi.
How are you, mate?
-Good, good to see you again.
One question for you.
What's a Green Michelin Star?
From the research I've been doing,
I guess it's like an initiative for restaurants
to be sustainable.
To try and practice good ethos in sourcing veg
and producing veg if you have farms,
and creating an environment that's nice to work in
for the staff as well.
Is it comparable to getting a Michelin Star?
We're in the guide and the food has to be a certain quality,
I imagine, from these things.
but it is more about your practices.
We've worked since day one to excel in that field,
so it's a great acknowledgement.
Absolutely, yeah.
Great for that team as well. Like I say, we work hard.
Everything we do, we put under the microscope
in that kind of environmental way,
so yeah, I'm really happy.
It's a really good thing for the team as well.
Ah, who doesn't love an aisle of booze.
Yeah, so this is our provision store.
We're open every Friday and Saturday from 11 till 4,
and it's basically a chance for us to showcase
and sell some of the wonderful produce
that we use in the restaurant when it's open.
But it's not just all dry store goods, is it?
No, on a Friday, it's going to look a lot more lively,
so there'll be a big bench here full of Rosie's baked goods
and lots of bread, lots of pastries.
And then we will also be busy cooking up some food
for you guys to take home.
What are they doing in the kitchen at the minute?
We've just got some hoggets in.
Actually, these are muttons.
They're a little bit older than the ones we usually get
from a lady called Helen.
We get her muttons every year.
She rears them for us and they're just, yeah,
beautiful Hebridean sheep.
It must be nice for you still to have that contact
with the customers when they come in.
Yes, absolutely.
That's a really special thing we're doing at the moment
that people can come through our doors.
We can greet them in the same way as we would greet them
in the restaurant, and, yeah, it's just really nice
to see people out and about.
The sustainability, which you've quite rightly
been acknowledged for, is a big thing with you guys.
I know that you like to grow your own and you've got a farm
but you've got something a little bit closer, haven't you?
As of March, we started to build a little garden
on a rooftop in an abandoned car park
on the Merseyway precinct.
The glamour!
It's so good.
It's above Ann Summers in Stockport precinct.
It's just, the punchline couldn't be better.
Forget sustainability, we're growing Korean cabbages
above Ann Summers in Stockport precinct.
That's the dream, innit?
That's the dream.
Can we go and have a look at it?
Yeah, I can take you over there now.
Thank you very much, let's go.
It's an impressive space, I love it.
Yeah, it's cool.
We're about to build a big shelter with a table
so we can eat up here.
We're going to start doing meals up here,
but workshops with the community and
have a bit of a wider audience.
So there's not a great deal going on now
'cause it's winter, but what sort of stuff do you do here?
The best thing about this place is we can grow loads
of different kinds of herbs, salads, chilies
that just aren't available, so in these frame things,
we'll be growing Poona Kheera cucumbers,
which are a cucumber--
Sorry, what are they called?
Poona Kheera.
It's a beautiful red cucumber I used to eat in India.
Really sweet and they've grown well here.
We grow a lot of Korean things because Seri's mum,
one of our chefs, she sends seeds from Korea.
Wow.
So Korean radishes.
We've got Mexican corianders,
just really interesting flavours that you can't buy.
Is there anything we can pick now?
We've got some beetroot on the menu this week,
so we're going to go through the beetroots.
Alright man, let's pick some.
Mate, I'm not sure there's even a beetroot on my one.
Yeah, you're just dropping soil, it's just soil.
I told you, don't trust me to do this for you.
It's great, we can come up with a new dish with that.
If you want to come down and try the produce
don't forget, you can come to their store, 11 till 4,
Friday and Saturday, or, and I advise this,
if you want to try one of the meal kits,
make sure you get online and get it booked in.
Do yourself a favour.