As Stefano Andreoli harvests a fresh crop of chillies and snips off a few leaves of fragrant basil, he’s literally taking matters into his own hands. While other chefs around the world have embraced the movement toward using more locally sourced ingredients, Chef Stefano and his colleagues in the kitchen have raised the bar by getting fresh ingredients in a country that must import nearly everything.

The new organic produce garden on the Hotel grounds is more than a convenience for the kitchen – it’s part of an overall sustainability programme at Four Seasons Hotel Singapore, with the first seeds planted in June 2009 as a way to get employees to embrace the green movement in a fun, interactive way.

Staff from all departments are involved in cultivating limes, bananas, lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, marjoram, tarragon and more. Blessed with a year-round tropical climate suitable for growing, the Hotel feeds the garden with organic compost waste from its own kitchens. Now, guests can enjoy fresh curry leaves in the fish curry at One-Ninety, and just-picked mint leaves in the The Bar and Alfresco’s mojitos.

Chef Stefano, newly arrived from Four Seasons Resort Mauritius and Four Seasons Resorts Maldives and now heading up the kitchen of One-Ninety in Singapore, believes that just a few choice fresh ingredients are all that is needed to enhance a dish. Among his favourites are the Hotel’s garden-grown pandan leaves and ginger, both essential ingredients in One-Ninety’s signature local dish, Hainanese chicken rice.

Chef Stefano also plans his weekly specials based on the produce he is able to harvest for the days ahead. From a recent healthy crop of basil and tarragon, Chef Stefano created pasta dishes flavoured with fresh herbs, which he also serves à la minute at One-Ninety’s Sunday Champagne Brunch. Applewood-grilled dishes, the focus of the dinner menu, are simply grilled and flavoured with fresh herbs from the garden.

Meanwhile, at Jiang-Nan Chun, chillies grown in the Hotel garden are now featured in the restaurant’s famous XO sauce, served with mee pok noodles and other dishes on the Cantonese menu.

While the number of farms in Singapore has dwindled in the past 40 years as the country propelled itself onto industrialisation, all is not lost. In addition to green programmes at businesses such as Four Seasons, a strategic policy by the government has encouraged the preservation of natural areas and the creation of new green spaces to help maintain Singapore’s reputation as “the Garden City.”