The new two-room space, which opened in November in a former cycling studio for high-altitude training and an old storage area, is only 1200 square feet. There is no fresh air or natural light; there is not even a window. Yet the venue can grow around 580 varieties of rare herbs and flowers (200 at a time) that supply New York’s top restaurants. Le Turtle, Le Coucou, Mission Chinese Food, and The Pool get regular deliveries from Farm.One, sometimes several times a week.

“I wouldn’t want to pay for a space with great retail frontage,” said Robert Laing, the farm’s chief executive and founder. “All we need is a floor drain, water, power, temperature control, and the ability to seal the space so bugs don’t get in.” The farm does deliberately bring in a few types of insects that are beneficial for plants, like ladybugs. “You can buy them on Amazon,” he said.

Katherine Chester, a farm hand at Farm.One, harvests for a morning delivery. (All Photos: Sarah Blesener for NYT)

Seeds are planted in materials like coconut husks and are put in a tray so water and nutrients can circulate below them. LED lights above simulate the sun. Growing time is not long; many plants, like microgreens, are ready in a little over a week.

People who find it weird to eat food grown in a basement have no reason to worry, said Neil Mattson, associate professor and greenhouse extension specialist at Cornell University. “There is nothing icky about it. Plants don’t care whether they get light from the sun or the lamps. It’s the same thing.”

Matthew Hyland, the chef and owner of Pizza Loves Emily, a client of Farm.One, agreed. “A hydroponic garden in general is an amazing thing,” he said. “It’s lit nicely; it smells good in there; the temperature is nice; everything about it is very pleasing.”

The plants grow on shelves that can be expanded or contracted like the stacks in a university library (this setup almost doubles the growing space.) On one level there might be anise hyssop, an herb with tiny lavender-colored flowers and square stems that tastes strongly of mint and licorice. On another, mustard green, a plant that tastes a lot like spicy horseradish. The colors are so diverse and vibrant that the head horticulturalist, David Goldstein, has taken to arranging them on trays for parties.

Amazon neon cherry dianthus and neon rose magic dianthus.

Edible flowers.

Nasturtium leaves.

Anise hyssop flowers. Farm.One can grow some 580 varieties of rare herbs and flowers. 

Mr. Laing, a British-Australian entrepreneur with a sharp sense of humor, can walk around the farm and tell you exactly what every variety is and to whom it is being delivered. “This is my favorite,” he said, pulling off a leaf of papalo. “Crush it up a little bit in your hand and smell it first — there is cilantro, citrus peel. It’s super fresh and quite grassy.” He paused. “I never want to sell software again.”

In a previous life, Mr. Laing worked in Japan, where he started a translation software company. After eight years he turned his attention to his true passion: food. He took culinary classes and visited farmers’ markets across the world, discovering many rare herbs he had never heard of along the way. “And I was someone I thought knew about food,” he said. So he started researching ways to bring these herbs to chefs.

Farm.One grew out of this research. In April 2016 the new company started growing products at a small indoor farm at the Institute of Culinary Education, also in Lower Manhattan, on Liberty Street. By August, the farm had its first client: Daniel Boulud’s Daniel. By the end of the summer, the herbs had sold out, which led Farm.One to open a second location this fall, at 77 Worth Street.

For $50, New Yorkers can take a tour of the farm, tasting dozens of rare flowers while sipping a glass of prosecco, and they are given a box of herbs to take home. Farm.One also offers seminars on the basics of hydroponics, and any herbs and flowers not snapped up by chefs are available for purchase through its website. Mr. Laing is discussing bringing the farm to other cities.

The harvest room at Farm.One.

Mr. Laing attributes the farm’s success to two factors: Rare products and low overhead. “Pluto basil can be sold for $40 a pound as opposed to $10 to $15 for regular basil,” he said. And since the farm is small, the cost of expensive LED lights is minimized. Larger hydronic farms like FarmedHere in Chicago have had to close.

Farm.One is also poised to cash in on the Instagram-driven food world, where chefs are willing to pay extra money for novelty items like rare herbs and flowers. Mr. Hyland, for example, is besotted by pluto basil. “They are really beautiful looking on a pizza with the little leaves everywhere,” he said. “Customers know it’s a custom-made product.”

Atera, the restaurant upstairs at 77 Worth, brings certain customers down to the farm for tours. It also offers one course in which the chef, tableside, dresses a dish with the herbs sourced from the basement. “Everyone gets pretty excited,” said Matthew Abbick, the restaurant’s general manager.

Farm.One is not the only place chefs can procure these herbs; chef farms or wholesalers in California or Ohio ship a variety of rare products across the country. However, New York chefs like that the greens at Farm.One are grown locally and haven’t been sitting in a warehouse or delivery truck for days. “Farm.One snips the herbs in the morning for an afternoon delivery,” said Victor Amarilla, the executive chef at Le Turtle. “I actually see my delivery guy walking up now. I see him twice a week.” Farm.One boasts on its website that delivery is just a 30-minute bike ride away from 90 percent of the restaurants in the city.

At Atera, a restaurant housed in the same building as Farm.One, there is a course in which the chef, tableside, dresses a dish with the herbs sourced from the basement.

There are also the environmental benefits. The farm recycles and reuses water, purging it every three weeks, which minimizes waste. But there are downsides. Studies show that in general, the environmental costs of lighting and heating indoor farms are significantly higher than shipping something across the country that’s been grown in the California sun. “We know it’s an issue and we are working on it with things like getting more efficient LED lights,” Mr. Mattson said.

Other insiders say that hydroponic farming is essential, especially as climate change makes growing seasons volatile and unreliable. “One of the most important things people will need to do over the next 100 years with climate change is bring food creation and cultivation back to cities where people are moving,” said Dan Nelson, an entrepreneur in Brooklyn who is researching the urban agriculture movement and who took a Farm.One seminar on hydroponics. “That’s my humanity-level thesis,” he added.

The New York City Council is currently exploring Bill 1661, a piece of legislation to define urban agriculture and bring about industry standards that will help it advance.

The main concern of chefs, though, is having ingredients they can cook with today. And many are applauding Farm.One’s contribution to their operations.

“New York has the greatest summer vegetables and fruits and leafy greens, and in the winter, we are in a real dead zone,” said Mr. Hyland. “Having a product year round that we can really be proud of, would be a great win for New York City food.”

The new 1,200 square-foot farm uses hydroponics (growing plants in a water-based nutrient solution, instead of soil) and efficient new LED lights to grow rare produce in a controlled environment, year-round. Farm.One grows over 500 different products, including sour, tangy Wood Sorrel Flowers, spicy red Mizuna microgreens, and a nutty “Dragon’s Tongue” Arugula. 

(Executive Chef, Atera with Rob Laing, CEO, Farm.One. Photo by Our Name is Farm)

This is our second farm in Manhattan, after our initial launch at the Institute of Culinary Education in April 2016. We grow produce completely pesticide-free, and deliver only to restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn, via bike and subway, eliminating food miles. Our proprietary software allows the team to manage hundreds of products and thousands of batches, all grown to order for chefs. The company’s packaging is reusable, minimizing waste. Atera had a small farm underneath its restaurant in the past, but this new farm run by Farm.One is multiple times larger, capable of growing over 1,000lb of produce and serving up to 50 restaurant customers. Farm.One’s other customers include restaurants Daniel, Jungsik, Le Turtle, L’Appart, Butter, Uchu and many other Michelin-star rated restaurants. Farming indoors in Manhattan allows us to deliver a huge range of rare produce for the most demanding chefs within a few hours of harvest, year-round. Our location eliminates waste and provides a fresher, better product. High-tech vertical farming doesn’t have to be about the same old leafy greens, it can be about excitement and delight.

Ronny Emborg, Executive Chef of Atera, says “In Denmark it was possible to step out the kitchen door and forage for beautiful ingredients. To have Farm.One in New York, just a few steps away from our kitchen gives us access to a huge range of rare ingredients, year-round. Stepping into the farm is happiness.” Demand for clean, local food is soaring, and "Hyper-Local Sourcing" is the top trend for 2017 according to the National Restaurant Association. From data provided by the Organic Trade Association, sales of Organic produce are expected to grow 70% between 2016-2021. As a result, in 2017 alone, over $250 million has been invested in urban vertical farming startups, most of whom are focused on mass-market leafy greens for supermarket use.

But Farm.One is the only vertical farm business growing a large number of rare, premium ingredients. Our friend Henry Gordon-Smith, of vertical farming industry experts Agritecture.com says "Farm.One produces on-demand products for chefs that are rare, unique and consistent year-round, giving it a very interesting business case that helps it stand out from the rest of the competition in vertical farming". The new farm underneath Atera is a world first, and will be a model for us to build future farms in other US cities and around the world.

One book changed my life. That’s when I started building my own MBA by meeting new people and reading 25-100 new books on various business topics every year. Since I began that journey there have been so many times where I have had my assumptions completely turned upside down (in a good way).

Having broad erudition at my disposal has helped me make better decisions early in my career.

I recently had an opportunity to interview 20+ vertical farming and environmental business entrepreneurs for a virtual summit that will be live from June 16th-25th.

That’s why I asked this question during every speaker interview:

“Do you have any favorite of most recommended books?”

Today I wanted to share what my speakers had to share. If you’re just getting started, or want to expand your urban ag library, I recommend that you check out the top-5 most recommended books below:

Top 5 Most Recommended

The Plant Factory Cradle to Cradle The Vertical Farm The Lean Startup Hydroponic Food Production

From there, depending on your goals, I would encourage you to pick up one of the recommendations below to learn something new. Reading new books is one of the best, and fastest ways to expand your mind.

My kindle has been getting a serious workout since I compiled this list. I hope you enjoy...

Henry Gordon Smith

Cradle to Cradle The Power of Habit The Plant Factory (must read)

Max Loessl

The Vertical Farm The Conscious Universe Cradle to Cradle & The Upcycle The Power of Habit Venture Deals: How to Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Your Venture Capitalist

Tinia Pina

The Alchemist Founder’s Dilemma

Stephen Ritz

The Power of a Plant

Cynthia Jaggi

Conscious Capitalism The Lean Startup Cradle to Cradle The Upcycle Business Model Generation

Nick Burton

Never Eat Alone The Dip Mindless Eating Ask Gary Vee

Ed Harwood

Books:

Greenhouse Engineering Seeds, Second Edition: Ecology, Biogeography, and, Evolution of Dormancy and Germination Fundamentals of Plant Science A Produce Reference Guide to Fruits and Vegetables from Around the World Hydroponics: A Practical Guide for the Soilless Grower. Postharvest Technology of Horticultural Crops LED Lighting for Urban Agriculture Photobiology of higher plants Physicochemical and Environmental Plant Physiology. Soilless Culture – Theory and practice 

Hydroponic Food Production Photomorphogenesis in Plants and Bacteria

For fun:

What a Plant Knows

Proceedings ACTA Horticulturae Proceedings Proceedings from the Greenhouse Systems International Conference

Joel Cuello

Books by professor Kozai The Vertical Farm

Journal Publications and Scientific Papers Books by Francis Fukoyama

Rob Laing

The Plant Factory Books by Derek Sivers Patrick Lencioni on management and working in teams The Toyota Way

Chris Higgins

Urban Ag News Back Issues Books by Howard Resh Books by Professor Kozai, The Plant Factory Books by J. Benton Jones Jr on Hydroponics

Andrew Carter

Mycelium Running Permaculture by Bill Mollison Books by Paul Stamets

Allison Kopf

Raising the Bar Tomatoland

Amanda Smith

Tools for Titans by Tim Ferriss The Backyard Homestead

Mike Nasseri

The Toyota Way Lean Startup Bold The Vertical Farm Zero Marginal Cost Society For the Past and Future Guns Germs and Steel The Century Trilogy Ghost Fleet Homo Deus

Evan Bromfield

Cradle to Cradle Let My People Go Surfing Teaming With Nutrients Teaming With Microbes

Nick Greens

The Plant Factory

Chris Powers

Chris’s Reading List

Invest In Yourself!

Books are comparably cheap, and if you actually read them, can literally change your life or shave years off of your learning curve like The Personal MBA did for me years ago. If you’re getting serious about Urban Agriculture, I suggest that you give at least one of these books a try.

Each speaker has spent years combing through all of the available information they can find on vertical farming, urban agriculture, business, and technology. So when I get a recommendation from a speaker who’s been in the CEA industry for 10+ years, I use that as a pretty good filter that the information is good.

If a $20 investment can save you years of struggling and hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, then I believe that’s a worthwhile trade.

There seems to be a lot of discussion online about what Deafheaven are…

“It’s the reason we don’t call ourselves a black metal band, because we’re not. We’re influenced by it, but we don’t have the ethos, the aesthetic or really the sound of one at this point, because there are way too many other influences in our sound. And that’s not just from the post-rock thing either, we have influences from alternative rock, Slayer and early Metallica.

“The thing that I’ve found in playing festivals and meeting people is a lot of the stuff with people having a very conservative view of metal, most of that comes from fans and people outside of it, not from the people in these metal bands. We met the dudes from Pig Destroyer the other week, and they were telling us that they and Cattle Decapitation love our record. And they are grind bands.

“Or when we toured with Justin Broderick from Godflesh; the people who make music and love metal, they get what we’re doing and that we’re not trying to personally offend anyone or bastardise the genre. I find that the people commenting, they’re the ones that have the issue because they have more to prove; it’s their identity. The guys in the bands are usually into whatever is interesting to them.”

There was a hugely positive response to your previous record, Sunbather - did you have a clear idea of where you wanted to head next with this record?

“Yes, and the thing with this record, because of the big splash Sunbather made, is that it was a constant battle of not getting too caught up in my head about it. But a big goal on this record for me, and the band as a whole, was to consciously move away from the shoegaze and post-black metal thing. They’re great genres but the whole crescendo and reverb/delay thing has been kind of done to death.

“While there’s still elements of that on the record, it was a conscious decision to trim the fat and make it riffier. Be a lot heavier and when we have the clean parts, make them more Smashing Pumpkins or Wilcoesque; where’s there’s riffs and hooks instead of being super spacey.”

Did playing punk when you first started out on guitar have an impact on your style now?

“I grew up on the outskirts of the Bay Area and at that time it was a lot of the late 90s/ early 2000s Gilman scene; AFI, Nerve Agents… all that type of stuff. I was really into that stuff and being into that before I got into metal, it influenced the sense of melody and high energy.

“The harmonised elements - they use a lot of octaves, a lot of dramatic chord progressions and have a way of doing that build and release thing. Anyone who likes our band will notice pretty much everything has a blast beat in it [somewhere], because I like really catchy high-energy fast parts; that’s a big thing for me.”

When did British guitar influences such as Kevin Shields and Johnny Marr come in?

“When I was 16. We used to drive from California to Colorado every summer for two weeks to visit my grandparents and uncle Kevin, who was kind of the hippy of the family. He saw I had a Cure shirt and was getting into punk when I was about 15, 16. He burned me The Smiths’ Louder Than Bombs and I was so stoked, I loved it.

“I’ve loved The Smiths since then. And when George was 16 I got him The Smiths greatest hits for his birthday. And I remember him telling me, and this is true of a lot of people with The Smiths and Morrissey, he didn’t get it at first. Then he slowly got how great that stuff is. But in terms of British music; The Smiths, Oasis, The Cure, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses… all that stuff is great to me.”

Was the fusing of metal and alternative music together a conscious idea?

“Yes it was. But this is another thing we always get hate for on the internet, all these people talking about how other people have done this, and we’re stealing this blah, blah, blah.

“That’s the thing, the moment when I realised we could have shoegaze- and post-rock-influenced stuff with black metal was when I heard other bands doing it. I heard Lantlôs from Germany, ColdWorld and then Alcest and all the French bands.

“I remember Fell Voices and the early Ash Borer stuff, and it being an interesting thing to me. Because I was in post-rock bands when I was in high school and I’ve always been interested in melody. I would write music like that, as well as metal. So to me it was just kind of a natural thing.

“Our old band broke up and we had nothing to do so the idea was a band that was all the kinds of music that I really like, but I’ll try to put it together as seamlessly as possible. Our whole thing was to never be afraid to do something; if it feels like it works to us then we won’t concentrate on what’s ‘not allowed’.

“If I want to write a riff that has a blast beat behind it but it has a major chord, we’ll do that if it works. There was never one moment when I thought, ‘we can do this’, but there was a gradual realisation. There’s no reason why I can’t put this Cranberries part after this blast beat.”

One thing that you seem to be refining on New Bermuda is transitioning, often between minor and major, without feeling jarring. Did it come from experimentation?

“With me, there’s two things I love about good songwriting. Obviously, there’s a good chord progression or a lead that just fits perfectly and gives you the peanut butter and chocolate moment. Then there’s the transitions. I love it when bands have great riffs, but if all you’re doing is riff-stacking - when there will be a great riff that will ring out, and then the other riff will start…

“I prefer it when bands can build something, and seamlessly go from one thing to another. It’s something I’ve worked hard on for a long time - the transitions and bridges between riffs, building tension and creating movement instead of just stacking riffs.”

Baby Blue sounds like a key song for the band on this record, in the way it seems to combine a number of your influences…

“For me that was a weird thing because a lot of that happened in the practice space instead of happening at home. I’ve had that three-chord progression at the beginning since Sunbather and just hadn’t used them, and they weren’t in that arpeggiated pattern. They were going to be an interlude on Sunbather but I didn’t use them. So I took that and added a phaser to it.

“My idea was that if you could take Johnny Marr and put him in Rush for a second, that was my idea for that intro. Then that part before it kicks in, for me that’s Russian Circles, and I love that band. When it does kick in, that’s essentially my ode to this old Bay Area screamo band called Funeral Diner. And we just wanted to do this big heavy mid-tempo thing, dirge-y yet melodic. Then the end is a total homage to Slayer.

“So I guess it’s a key track but we love all the songs on this record. We’ve always just done what we want to do, if it works we’ll do it. Not to say we’re super crazy for that but it was wanting to combine all those influences on one song.”

There’s also some Metallica in that melodic wah solo too?

“That’s just a part of this record of trying to incorporate classic era Hammett, like Ride The Lightning. Obviously I’m not as fast or technically able as that guy. But the whole record has that, there’s Hetfield-style riffing, or my take on it. I don’t think I went too overboard with the solos but when I want to put one in, for me it’s usually Hammett and Mustaine’s [contributions] to Kill ’Em All, that’s what I’ve been really into recently.”

Do you think there is common ground between post-rock and black metal guitar?

“Absolutely. Because of the way the band started with myself, a lot of the way I write is taking a rhythm riff and then trying to see if I can play some kind of lead at the same time as playing a rhythm. Which is why a lot of the chords are kind of weird.

“I’ve always been of the opinion that the only thing that separates genres with riffs is what you do with them. If you take a Cranberries riff and you put it through a Burzum production, at that tempo and stretch the riff out, you can totally write a black metal song with that riff. It’s an E minor riff that’s simple, sad and atmospheric.

“To me it’s simple, I don’t understand why more people don’t get that. You can take an At The Gates riff, delay it and put a bunch of reverb on it and make it into a very dark post-rock song. You can do the same with a post-rock song and turn it into thrash metal or whatever. That’s the key to our band; riffs are riffs, but the context you put them in determines the genre.”