{"id":326161,"date":"2026-03-03T05:58:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/326161\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T05:58:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:58:24","slug":"belvedere-colleges-rooftop-farm-that-supplies-two-michelin-star-restaurant-chapter-one-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/326161\/","title":{"rendered":"Belvedere College\u2019s rooftop farm that supplies two Michelin-star restaurant Chapter One \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the fifth storey of Belvedere College<\/a> in Dublin 1<\/a>, floor-to-ceiling glass windows give an uninterrupted view out to the Howth peninsula, taking in the city\u2019s Georgian rooftops and the smooth blue of the Irish Sea. <\/p>\n

This is the vista from the school\u2019s climate-controlled grow chamber<\/a>, where plants flower in vertical towers of plastic under purplish LED lighting, and fish tanks full of ornamental carp run the length of the room. It is futuristic and unexpected to find this high-tech aquaponics system, which uses fish waste to fertilise plants, in a secondary school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look like an amazing ecosystem, but it is,\u201d says Simon O\u2019Donnell, the educator who started the school\u2019s urban farm in 2014. \u201cIt\u2019s got glass, plastic, aluminium. You\u2019re thinking it\u2019s something artificial, but underneath all of that is a complex microbiome and mature ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fish are being fed, they\u2019re creating waste, and rather than treating that as a problem to manage, we look at it as a resource,\u201d says O\u2019Donnell. \u201cThis waste runs through a pipe system to a filter, where it is broken down by bacteria, which makes it accessible to the plants as a fertiliser.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plants suck up the nutrients they need, and then the same water goes back to the fish. It is a constant closed loop that allows for the same water to be used and reused many times.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Europe needs a resilient food system and as part of its broader strategic defenceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Other than a central concrete courtyard, Belvedere College has no ground space for growing. So since its inception, the farm project needed an innovative option for soil-free food production. At any one time, the aquaponics grow chamber can be home to more than 45 different varieties of plants, from exotic Korean mint to humble garden weeds. Leafy greens are particularly suited to the system, but students are free to experiment with what interests them.<\/p>\n

The system is unaffected by the weather, so it can consistently produce crops 365 days a year. \u201cThe plants don\u2019t have to deal with changing weather or soil conditions. They don\u2019t have to be as tough as if they were growing outside,\u201d says O\u2019Donnell.<\/p>\n

\"SimonSimon O’Donnell, the educator in charge of Belvedere College’s urban farm. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

The uniqueness of this growing climate has led to an unusual partnership. <\/p>\n

A few years ago, a huddle of pupils descended from the grow lab to the cellar of Chapter One, a two-Michelin-star restaurant on Dublin\u2019s Parnell Square, with a proposition.<\/p>\n

Their school was growing a wide variety of plants, aromatic herbs and flavour-packed flowers. Would the restaurant be interested in taking them on as an ultra-local supplier?<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018You get obsessed\u2019: Lunch at Chapter One with arguably one of the world\u2019s best food writersOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started as an educational project for the business students, just to see if they could drum up a little interest from local businesses. They\u2019re amazing salesmen,\u201d says O\u2019Donnell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boys came back and said Chapter One was interested, and the farm really took on new life after that. Often, with growing projects in schools, students don\u2019t get to see the life cycle of the crop. But with this, they are planting, growing, harvesting, processing and selling. There are a lot of different points of interest for different students.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell now begins most school days by harvesting and packing orders for the restaurant, which is led by Mickael Viljanen.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on your mood, it can be therapeutic or frustratingly slow,\u201d he says, pinching 120 pineapple mint tips and placing each one in a small container before moving on to gather 120 butter yellow oxalis flowers.<\/p>\n

\"AA delivery ready for Chapter One. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"BelvedereBelvedere College student Conor O’Leary on the way to Chapter One with Simon O’Donnell. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"HandingHanding over the goods: Conor O’Leary of Belvedere College delivering urban farm produce to Midhnav Manoj of Chapter One. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"ChapterChapter One chef patron Mickael Viljanen with a white asparagus dish garnished with herbs grown at Belvedere College. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"WhiteWhite asparagus garnished with herbs grown at Belvedere College created by Mickael Viljanen of Chapter One. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

\u201cMost people think of oxalis as a weed in Ireland,\u201d says O\u2019Donnell. \u201cBut the flower is a citrusy burst, and its leaf has this really intense flavour too. When you have restaurants doing tiny little plates, it helps to have these strong bursts of flavour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flowers and leaves that the urban farm sells to Chapter One are delicate and wouldn\u2019t be suitable for long-distance transportation. <\/p>\n

This has led to students asking questions about where their food comes from and the challenges of the global food trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou learn how things can grow in different environments, and now I am looking at where things are coming from when I\u2019m in the supermarket,\u201d says Joseph Smyth, a third year student. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing that an orange can come from Spain and not be rotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 1,000-strong student population, roughly half will have a meaningful interaction with the farm during their time at fee-paying Belvedere, through short courses in the junior cycle, transition year projects, or subjects such as home economics, business and agricultural science.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do both classroom and practical work,\u201d says Charlie Leyden, a first-year student who grew rocket at school and brought it home for his pasta. \u201cIt\u2019s not hard to grow things, once you know how.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as the aquaponics system, the urban farm has an open rooftop farm growing native Irish plants such as oyster leaf, one of the island\u2019s rarest species, and more exotic plants such as Sichuan peppers.<\/p>\n

Oyster mushrooms are grown in plastic bags of coffee grounds, microgreens germinate in small tubs, and rooftop beehives produce pots of honey, which students sell at Christmas and at parents\u2019 evenings.<\/p>\n

Daragh O\u2019Leary, a fourth-year student and one of the school\u2019s top honey salesmen, says he is now looking beyond honey and \u201cwould like to grow apples and have pet chickens in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Urban agriculture isn\u2019t a new idea \u2013 already it produces between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the world\u2019s legumes, vegetables and tubers.<\/p>\n

But developing more sustainable ways to grow food in population centres is becoming ever more urgent. Half of the world\u2019s population now lives in cities and 2.3 billion people globally face food insecurity. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Raising urban chickens: \u2018The joy that people get when you hand them the eggs is unmatched\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

So innovative ways to preserve depleted soil, reduce water usage and waste, cut down on carbon emissions associated with transport and packaging, and grow food securely and locally are needed. <\/p>\n

High-tech urban farming methods such as aquaponics are not yet a perfect solution; they consume a lot of energy and there are challenges to making them financially viable on a small scale, but the advantage of Belvedere being a school rather than a business means there is time and space for both mistakes and ambitious thinking. <\/p>\n

This openness to experimentation is why, in a greenhouse tucked into the top of the science block, there are several tanks of feather-gilled axolotls.<\/p>\n

Similar to salamanders, axolotls are a critically endangered species in the wild but have become popular because of their unusual biology. They can regrow limbs, parts of their brains, even their hearts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using them in a similar way to the fish for the aquaponics. They are really cool. They don\u2019t fully age,\u201d explains Conor O\u2019Leary, a second year pupil. \u201cThey have regenerative properties like octopi.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BelvedereBelvedere College students Joseph Smith and Charlie Leyden monitoring the urban farm. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"AA fish swims in a tank within Belvedere College’s urban farm. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"BelvedereBelvedere College students keeping an eye on plants in the school’s urban farm. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Above the tanks of axolotls are plants growing in pellets, as well as containers of rare species such as Buddha\u2019s hand, which produces a lemony rind, and finger limes, known as nature\u2019s caviar. The space is less about production than experimentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started, I thought there had to be magic to it. I didn\u2019t think I could just put a seed in some soil with some water and it would grow,\u201d says O\u2019Donnell. \u201cBut that is just what happens. It\u2019s trial and error. You don\u2019t always know if it\u2019s going to work, but you just try.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not necessary to have a degree in horticulture or aquaponics,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s important that schools don\u2019t feel they have to know everything before they get started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor O’Leary at feeding time in the urban farm at Belvedere College. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Belvedere applied for government funding to put aquaponics systems in local Deis schools, keen to share its learning with others, generate local knowledge and swap resources.<\/p>\n

Two of the schools the team worked with, O\u2019Connell School near Croke Park and St Kevin\u2019s College on Clogher Road in Crumlin, have since adapted the project to suit their own needs.<\/p>\n

St Kevin\u2019s, which has some outdoor space, developed an outdoor edible garden, and O\u2019Connell School developed an environmental studies, sustainability and horticulture programme.<\/p>\n

Conor Flood, who retired from teaching last year but now runs the O\u2019Connell School programme full-time, says, \u201cWe started from nothing in 2019, and now it has really taken off. O\u2019Connell\u2019s was concrete-bound until another teacher and I began reclaiming spaces within the school, and an inner courtyard has now become a space for a polytunnel and raised beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with onions, garlic, runner beans, chillies and tomatoes, the pupils grow potatoes and cook them using the school\u2019s air fryer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were building bamboo frames today for climbing plants, and we just let the kids at it and let them solve the problems,\u201d Flood says. \u201cAs long as they\u2019re not on their phones and they\u2019re learning something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Flood, who runs the garden project O’Connell School in Dublin. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n

The O\u2019Connell School horticulture programme is self-funded, and Flood gets support from local companies, both financial and resource-led. \u201cA few bob, it goes a long way,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The programme has given pupils who might not excel in classroom-based learning a chance to shine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s given them an opportunity to be good at something,\u201d Flood says. \u201cTo see where food comes from, to be a little bit more comfortable getting their fingernails dirty, and it absolutely allows them to excel. We give them responsibility, and they just run with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are small-scale ventures into new ways of thinking about urban farming and local food production, but as O\u2019Donnell says: it\u2019s just trial and error. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the fifth storey of Belvedere College in Dublin 1, floor-to-ceiling glass windows give an uninterrupted view out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1153,151048,25815,37837,93,13355,61,60,709,46885,5861],"class_list":["post-326161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-sustainability","tag-belvedere-college","tag-climate-sustainability","tag-dublin-1","tag-entertainment","tag-food-production","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-michelin","tag-restaurant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}