Bell Book and Candle, New York
Six floors up a townhouse on West 10th Street in NYC sits a garden unlike any other in town. Imagine 60 aeroponic towers filled with plants, and an electronically timed, energy-efficient water-filtration system; from far away the towers look almost like cacti, grown over with herbs, vegetables and fruits.
Bell Book and Candle is a new restaurant (it opened in late 2010) that grows almost 60 percent of its produce on the roof for use in its menu of updated American classics. (The items that the rooftop produces are listed on the menu itself, including four varieties of nasturtium, purple tomatillo, kermit eggplant, poblano peppers, bibb lettuce and fennel, among many others.) Executive chef John Mooney is reliant on somewhat old-fashioned methods of labor: the building lacks an elevator, so they instituted a pulley system to transport goods to and from the roof.
