A friend of mine lives near here and so do I, but we only realised how close we are when we started talking about the chicken roundabout.

Chicken roundabout is a unique, and special place where a colony of chickens have managed to inhabit a busy roundabout on the A143 busy main route through East Anglia to Great  Yarmouth. Loved by locals and travellers alike the chickens go about their daily life seemingly oblivious to the speeding traffic all around them. There were chickens on the site for many years before the bypass and roundabout were ever planned – see the history page for more information about this.

In more recent times they have received national media attention when the council tried to have them removed resulting in local protests – see the news page about this.”

Photographs from chickenroundabout.co.uk

I went to visit our new fish supplier down at Lowestoft, he also has an old smokehouse dating back around 180 years, so stay tuned for some weird and wonderful things coming out of that one!

Apart from that, we are planning to open a farm shop where everyone will be able to purchase a range of produce straight from our Norfolk farm. We’re in the middle of developing ideas about how to do it and how to arrange the shop.

l also took along a butcher to the farm. He’s going to help us create the Frontline sausage and bacon recipes, so watch this space. I hope to get some pictures up on this and all the other goings on pretty soon.

And last but not least, we are currently buying some rare breed chickens called Norfolk blacks – they will be making their appearance on a plate near you soon.

It quickly became clear that we could do something unique with the land and turn the farm into a blueprint for sustainable farming and restauranteering of the future, bringing together the ‘paddock to plate’ way of thinking.

Our first idea was to set up lamb grazing on our Norfolk pastures, where sheep are properly looked after until they’re ready for slaughter. After the necessary deed we hang the carcass for around 12 days and bring them directly to the kitchen in London where we do all our own butchery, and turn raw produce into what you see on the plate before you. Thanks to that, we are able to control all aspects of the process and use all the cuts of the meat. No wasting! This total eating philosophy is called provenance.

From what I can see now, traceability is now becoming very popular and many celeb chefs are jumping on the bandwagon – where we have been on quietly all this for the last two years. As such, we feel morally responsible to get the message of traceablility across to you all, in a well informed yet straightforward way.

In addition to the meat end of things, we have created, sown and grown our own organic veg garden that is looked after by Alan. We breed rare Gloucester old spot pigs which we introduced into the woods and which we are now bringing in for slaughter too. We also have our own chicken egg production up and running.

We aim to increase our links with the farm and the local community of Norfolk until we are 85% producing, sourcing and delivering a product about which we can all lift our heads up high and proud as one big team.

As for the style of food that we do here, we’re trying to bring together some old classics in a more contemporary style while remaining honest and unpretentious. That means it’s not just fantastic ingredients, well sourced and executed, but it all comes to the plate with a Frontline philosophy as outlined above, which will continue to grow and develop alongside all the other things that Frontline stands for.