Celebration of the seasons: Mauro Colagreco brings his planet-friendly ethos to Britain

Hyper-seasonal; zero-waste; farm-to-table; root-to-fruit: The menus and mantras of London’s trendiest restaurants are increasingly dominated by this sort of sustainability jargon. But beyond the buzzwords is a real culinary movement that – despite what food influencers on TikTok and ‘heating up’ lists in the Sunday supplements may suggest – has been brewing for decades.

Leading the charge is Mauro Colagreco, head chef of three-Michelin starred (and Michelin Green Starred) restaurant Mirazur and the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity. Since opening in 2006 with Colagreco at the helm, Mirazur, in Menton, France, has been driven by a philosophy of circular gastronomy – that is, growing and cooking food in line with the cycles of nature for the most environmentally and socially sustainable approach possible. Colagreco has recently brought his plant-forward culinary approach to British terroir for the first time, launching three dining concepts within Raffles London at the OWO, including his eponymous restaurant, Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London at the OWO.

The dining room of Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London.

As at Mirazur, vegetables are the star ingredients at Mauro Colagreco. The chef capitalises on his new surroundings by showcasing Britain’s natural bounty, with each dish focused around a seasonal hero vegetable and merely supported by meat and seafood. Take the dish unassumingly titled ‘Lettuce’: A bed of crisp red oak lettuce (locally grown in a hydroponic farm in Elephant and Castle) is accented with slithers of smoked fish and shards of sesame brittle before being drizzled with a luxurious vermouth and cockle sauce. The crisp, delicate lettuce, punctuated by those supplementary flavours, completely reframed my perception of the humble lettuce leaf and, more importantly, my expectations of a vegetable-led meal. And that’s exactly what Colagreco wants to achieve.

'Lettuce'.

Before opening in London, Colagreco and his team spent two years acquainting themselves with the UK’s produce and producers, as well as studying the country’s relationship with food and its approach to farming. “Opening a restaurant means discovering a place and not just turning up and imposing things on it. Our work has to respect the ecosystems in place,” he tells me.

It was a challenge, coming to the UK and working with produce from a radically different terroir and climate to that of Mirazur on the warm and sunny French Riviera. “On the Côte D’Azur, especially in Menton, we have an incredible microclimate, so when we started to think about [opening in London], we had to think in a totally different way,” Colagreco says.

'Radicchio'.

At Mauro Colagreco, the menu reveals more than 70 varieties of vegetables and fruit, all grown in the UK with the same hyper-seasonal, hyper-local approach that Colagreco has taken for almost 20 years at Mirazur. “I was totally surprised by the quality of the produce, the quality of the farms, and we found a lot of people who work in the same way, who understand agriculture. So for us, it was a very nice surprise,” he says.

Adapting to the UK’s very distinct seasonal shifts was another challenge. “In Menton, we have four seasons, but it’s a smoother transition throughout the year because the variation between temperatures is not that big. So for us, it was learning about working with these distinct seasons,” he says. “But we continue to learn, and that’s what’s beautiful about our work.”

Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London.

Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London.

Colagreco was born and raised in Argentina, and his heritage plays a key role in his approach to cooking and eating. “I was lucky to have my grandparents’ houses in the countryside in Argentina and I was in contact with nature since I was a baby,” he says. Having Italian grandparents on both sides meant that family mealtimes were eventful. “Italians are very passionate about food and the table is always alive. Everything happens around the table. Because my grandparents are still living in the countryside, for holidays and birthdays and celebrations, we meet all the family there and there are always big tables, lots of food.”

“For a chef, it’s much more interesting to work with vegetables, because you have more colours, more flavours, different textures.”

By opening a vegetable-led restaurant in the early 2000s, Colagreco was taking a risk and actively challenging the status quo, especially as a chef hailing from a steak-obsessed nation. “As an Argentinian, it was a hard decision, because we have people who eat the most meat in the world,” he says. But that decision paid off and diners have been incredibly receptive, enticed by the inventiveness with which Colagreco unexpectedly transforms some of the most prosaic plants (see the aforementioned lettuce) into culinary masterpieces. “For a chef, it’s much more interesting to work with vegetables, because you have more colours, more flavours, different textures,” he says. “You can do a lot of things you can’t do with animal protein. For me, the more I dive into the vegetable world, the more I love to work with vegetables, because it’s a huge palette.”

The view from Mirazur's dining room.

Given Colagreco’s love for vegetables, would he ever think of opening an exclusively vegetarian restaurant? The answer is a straightforward “No.” “It’s all a question of balance,” he says. “Today, we eat a lot of meat, a lot of protein, and we have to balance it out for our health, but also the planet.” Colagreco believes that instead of completely eradicating meat from our diets, it’s possible to make smaller, more sustainable changes, starting with introducing more plants and eating seasonally. “In the supermarkets, do you know when the peak of strawberry sales is?” He throws his hands up in bewilderment. “The 14th of February! In the middle of winter! So it’s about changing habits, small things.”

Mauro in the Mirazur gardens at Menton.

Those who dine at Mirazur are invited for a post-meal tour of the restaurant’s surrounding gardens, where most of the produce it uses is grown across 17 hectares of land. This offers guests a chance to connect directly with their food, while serving as an idyllic example of how things could be, if we sourced locally and ate in sync with the seasons. “I think first and foremost we need to think about how we supply our products and how we produce,” says Colagreco. “To supply locally is super important, to follow the seasons. For me, it’s something natural because I’m looking for the best produce and the best produce is the produce that’s in season.”

Which brings us back to Colagreco’s signature restaurant in a pristine parlour room of London’s majestic Old War Office. The setting may be worlds away from Mirazur’s light-drenched hilltop dining room with panoramic sea views, but the ethos remains the same. “If there is something in common [between Mirazur and Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London] it’s the respect for the produce, and this idea that everywhere in the world you can find good produce.”

It’s just a matter of seeking it out: “The solutions exist,” he says. And we may just encounter them in our very own backyard.

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