Chicago chef Devon Quinn garnishes and grows restaurant meals for The Paramount Group in a greenhouse
CHICAGO (CBS) — Earth Day was celebrated earlier this week, but the celebration continues all month at CBS Chicago.
CBS 2's Jamaica Ponder reports from a Chicago greenhouse that's not just filled with flowers but food for a chef's restaurant.
A chef with formal training in biology who can grow enough food to introduce fresh, local flavors to over 2,000 diners a day.
And the whole thing isn't any larger than a studio apartment in Chicago.
When you look at a plate full of colorful veggies, fresh herbs, and edible flowers, do you ever think, even for a moment, that the hands making your food are also the hands that grew it?
Devon Quinn both built and operated these greenhouses so he could grow what he wanted when he wanted it.
"We're only cutting what we need, either that day or for the next couple of days. So that we get this constant rotation of product is there."
He's the Chief Culinary Officer for The Paramount Group, one of the city's largest catering companies, and he heads up their restaurant, Eden.
This means all the greens, flowers, and figs go straight from his greenhouse to the plates of thousands of Chicagoans daily.
"I mean, once you tally it all up, it's probably average is about 2,000 people a day that we're feeding," Quinn said. "I'm able to garnish all of the orders with stuff that's picked out of this greenhouse."
The gardens are nearly a decade old. Quinn built the first boxes on industrial pallets with wheels so they could move as he did, but around the greenhouse, there's one thing no amount of movin' around can save you from…
"I got it to be about wintertime, and I didn't want my gardens to die, so my dad helped me build a structure," Quinn said.
Their first iteration was far simpler than the one growing plants now: some plastic, an exhaust fan, and a heater or two.
"It's just a matter of getting your hands dirty, building some simple boxes, getting some high-quality organic soil, and starting the process," Quinn said.
And through that process, he gets back to his roots.
"I've really been able to dive back in and take me back to when I studied biology first and worked in laboratories and stuff," Quinn said. "It's a way for me to reconnect with that background, as well as a way for us to be really, truly connected to our food."
The greenhouse is run like a lab: soil testing, leaf examination, taking note of all the variables, and teaching his culinary team to do the same.
"I would like to teach as many people the knowledge that I know as possible so that these things don't go, go away and die," Quinn said.
Chef Quinn is married to the founder of the paramount group, Jodi Fyfe.
Together, they're focusing on making farm-to-table dining even more widespread—as the chef said, the key to keeping it alive is sharing what you know.
