About 4:30 p.m. — sometime between the lunch rush and the dinner craziness — chef Colin Ambrose escapes from the kitchen of his Long Island restaurant Estia. He heads out the backdoor and enters a calmer, quieter realm. Within a few minutes, he reaches the source of much of his culinary inspiration. His one-acre, organic garden has row after row of lettuce, cucumbers, beets, carrots, and tomatoes — plump from the summer's sun. Today he harvests scallions, radishes, sweet peas, iceberg lettuce and mint. In less than two hours, the fresh produce will make its way from the garden to the kitchen and onto a customer's plate as part of a special dish known as "The Two-Hour Salad" that includes shrimp in a mint-pesto glaze.

Like Ambrose, a growing number of restaurateurs use their green thumbs to put just-picked freshness on customers' plates. "We merchandise everything we grow as being fresh-grown from our garden," says Ambrose. "It gives me a point of difference in the restaurant business."

A growing business

Americans crave fresh, locally grown produce. According to the National Restaurant Association's Tableservice Restaurant Trends — 1998, 62 percent of tableservice restaurants with an average per-person check of $25 or more report that locally grown produce is gaining in popularity, as do 47 percent of restaurants with an average check of $15 to $24.99. And what could be fresher than produce picked straight from a restaurant's garden?

"The majority [of produce that comes from our garden] is on the plate within a few hours of being harvested, so it's teeming with vitamins," says Ambrose. "You can tell the difference between what you get here and what you get at the restaurant down the street."

The Estia garden contains mostly annuals — such as tomatoes and cucumbers — and is located behind the restaurant in Amagansett, New York. Perennials such as asparagus, peaches and raspberries grace another acre of land by Estia's sister restaurant — Estia's Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, New York. The farm-fresh produce adds pizazz to dishes such as "Pan-Seared Cod Served Over Garden Greens With Root Vegetables," which features Swiss chard, broccoli rabe, carrots and leeks. Zucchini flowers, marigolds, squash blossoms and other edible flowers serve as colorful garnishes for dishes.

Fresh, regional produce enriches any dish, says Steve Alterman, co-owner of Atlanta's Horseradish Grill. The restaurant has a policy of serving only seasonal, local produce. In other words, you won't find a tomato or a strawberry at Horseradish Grill come winter. A portion of the restaurant's produce comes from an organic garden behind the restaurant. The restaurant garden yields sugar-snap peas, beans, tomatoes, strawberries, chives, dill and other herbs. "There's nothing more fun than getting food out of the garden and serving it minutes later," says Alterman. Sweet sugar-snap peas brighten up specials such as "Sea Bass With Sugar Snaps," straight-off-the-vine tomatoes abound in the "Tomato and Vidalia Onion Salad," and fresh strawberries add a taste of springtime to strawberry shortcake, sorbet and a multitude of other desserts.

Not your garden variety

As restaurant gardens go, Estia's is on the larger side, yet it yields only about 15 to 25 percent of the restaurant's produce, and then only during harvest time, which runs from mid-May to early December. Because of the volume of food they prepare, most restaurants can't depend solely on their gardens for produce.

A restaurant garden can, however, provide the opportunity to grow items that are difficult or expensive to obtain from a vendor. For example, Ambrose grows hard-to-find produce, such as suyo (a type of cucumber) and lemon cucumbers, green-zebra tomatoes and golden beets. "I try to grow things customers aren't going to find in other restaurants," he says.

Chef Rick Bayless has transplanted vegetation from south of the border into his 2,000-square-foot backyard garden in the Windy City. Among other things, he grows the Mexican herb epazote, chilaca chilies and hoja santa — a plant with large leaves and an anise-like flavor. He uses the items to add authenticity to the Mexican dishes at Frontera Grill, located in downtown Chicago. "Some of these are things that you don't see easily from vendors," he says. "They're expensive and not in supply."

He also uses his garden to experiment with different types of produce. "We have 18 varieties of tomatoes growing, so we can figure out what works best," says Bayless. "We don't grow enough to make a dent in what we need here, but it sure is fun."

Herbs may be the one thing that restaurateurs find they can easily grow in large quantities, allowing them to flavor an abundance of food with garden products. For example, The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, California, grows a large selection of herbs — everything from basil to lemongrass to fennel. Every herb used in the high-end Dining Room comes from the resort's garden, as do 40 percent of the herbs used in the resort's other three restaurants, says Executive Chef Christian Rassinoux.

At the Sweet Sage Coffee Cafe in North Redington Beach, Florida, oregano, basil, thyme, dill, chives and other herbs grow in large pots in a small garden behind the cafe. "I couldn't get to the store to get everything that I needed," says owner Barbara Wilson. "This way I could just reach out my door and get it."

Harvesting in season

The amount of produce that the Horseradish Grill garden yields is only a drop in the bucket for the busy 170-seat upscale operation, but the lessons learned from having a garden are immeasurable. "It's there for the purpose of educating and reminding us," says Alterman. "We're all about regional, seasonal food. We decided we needed to do something educational in line with that." If an item can't grow in the restaurant's garden, it doesn't make its way onto the menu.

Chef Dave Berry, who oversees the garden, describes the garden as a "teaching tool. . . . It explains why we don't have tomatoes and strawberries in the winter."

Alterman believes it's never too early to start learning about the value of regional cuisine and the art of gardening. Children from the neighboring Galloway School often visit the garden to learn how to plant, nurture and harvest everything from potatoes to chives.

Cafe Juanita in Kirkland, Washington, also specializes in regional cuisine and uses its 300-square-foot garden to help the culinary staff stay on target. When the 20-year-old restaurant came under the management of chef Holly Smith this spring, planting a garden was one of the first pieces of business. "A lot of our philosophy is based on what's in season," says Sous Chef Joe Hook. "Having a garden allows us to know what we can cook. The key to freshness is when you can actually grow the food yourself. If you have a garden, you know what's fresh and what's in season."

Bayless says that through gardening, chefs can earn a greater appreciation for food. "I think it's extremely important for chefs to understand the whole process from planting to preparing a dish. I think that chefs who understand gardening know when to stop [the food-preparation process]. You don't want to mess with it [the produce], because you've invested so much energy in the cultivation, and that's an art as well.

"If you don't have your own garden, it's important to go out and visit farms and talk to farmers and make a connection with the growing process," says Bayless. "The more you get into working with farmers, the more you understand the rhythm of growing, and the better cook you become."

A garden view

"Would you like to sit inside or outside?" At Hollywood's Les Deux Cafe, the answer is outside more often than not. In the 120-seat garden area, guests eat among Persian mulberry trees, wild-strawberry patches and flowering squash vines. "Everybody wants to be in the garden all of the time," says owner Michele Lamy. "It's the best part of the restaurant."

Hollywood's sunny, dry climate makes dining in the garden possible year-round. When it gets a little nippy, space heaters take the chill off. As they dine in the garden, customers are truly enveloped in the experience. For starters, guests receive a plate of organic vegetables, including some from the restaurant's garden, to munch on as they read the menu. As an appetizer, diners can select zucchini blossoms — fresh from the operation's garden — stuffed with goat cheese, hazelnuts and fresh herbs. For dessert, they can savor a tart featuring apricots from the garden or indulge in ice cream flavored with home-grown geraniums.

The extensive garden and outdoor seating defines Les Deux Cafes. "It's the first thing that started that restaurant," says Lamy, who grew up learning how to garden alongside her grandfather, who owned a farm and a restaurant in Lyon, France. She and her staff transformed a Hollywood parking lot into the garden in 1996 prior to opening the restaurant.

The garden at the Sweet Sage Coffee Cafe also makes a serene dining spot. Guests at the cafe's 10 outdoor tables dine to the soothing sounds of birds chirping and water flowing through the garden's fountain. "With society as fast moving as it is, this is a place where people can go where time stands still," says Wilson. Cilantro, parsley, mint and other herbs grow in large pots along a walkway. Pansies, geraniums and nasturtiums add brilliant flashes of color. Wilson uses the garden products to enrich her freshly made dishes. For example, dill, basil and chives flavor her "Creamy Scrambled Eggs" and pansies garnish her Belgian waffles. "People enjoy watching me go out and pick what I need," she says.

Guests at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel can stroll through the hotel's gardens or sit at a bench garden-side, enjoying the sweet smells of herbs and flowers. The hotel also offers tours of its lush gardens. Each tour ends back in the hotel where guests enjoy a three-course luncheon featuring items such as "Braised Black Bass With Wild Fennel" that are accentuated by edible ingredients from the garden.

Toiling in the fields for relaxation

Gardens provide a haven for more than just the restaurant's guests. Restaurateurs such as Bayless, Hook and Ambrose say that their gardens are a wonderful escape from the hectic pace of running a foodservice operation. "Gardening is the most wonderful antidote for the restaurant business," says Bayless. "It's slow, it's quiet, it's so nice to tend to."

Hook agrees. "It's great to be able to go outside and walk around and see the true essence of cooking. This is where it all begins. It's great to leave the fast-paced kitchen and walk around the garden."

As for Ambrose, after a tough day of dealing with complaining customers, delinquent deliveries and broken appliances, he occasionally thinks about quitting the business. But then his thoughts turn to his garden and his next outing to harvest sugar-snap peas, carrots and other produce to incorporate into dishes that delight customers, and he decides that there is no way he can leave all that behind. "I'm totally hooked," he says.

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