“Roof-to table” (sometimes written without hyphens as “roof to table” and less-frequently written as “rooftop-to-table”) indicates that the food comes from a rooftop garden. Rooftop gardens are usually found in cities, with plants often grown with the help of a hydroponic automatic watering system. The term “roof-to-table” was popularized by April 2010 Bon Appetit magazine’s “Top 10 Best Roof-to-Table Dining” by Andrew Knowlton.
 
There are other similar terms. “Gate-to-plate” (“from farm gate to dinner plate”) has been cited in print since at least 1973. “Farm-to-table” has been cited since at least 1911, but became popular in the 1980s. “Field-to-fork” has been cited in print since at least 1989.
     
 
Sightline Daily
Food with a Conscience in Seattle
Posted by Eric Hess
10/13/2009 10:30 AM
From Roof to Table. Jumping on a growing trend in the city, I started my first rooftop garden last spring. More and more, apartment and condo managers are appealing to the green thumbs of urban residents (or at least those not lucky enough to have a P-patch—neighborhood gardens that are in high demand) by offering up-for-grabs soil on their rooftops. A new restaurant, Bastille, even serves salad greens fresh from its roof in the summer.
 
bonappetit.com
Top 10 Best Roof-to-Table Dining
In this year’s version of farm-to-table eating, restaurants in big cities are literally raising their roofs, harvesting everything from herbs and chiles to tomatoes and beans. Here are our favorites in extreme locavore dining.
By Andrew Knowlton
April 2010
 
Essentially Entertaining
27 May 2010
From Rooftop to Table
Whether you appreciate the local food movement (we do), or think organic is important (we do), you must agree that the fresher the ingredients, the better the taste.  Whether from a farmers market, roadside stand, or your very own garden, the smell and taste always seem to be more intense.
   
Grub Street Philadelphia
Noble’s Bounty Gives Way to Roof-to-Table Dinners
6/10/10 at 3:56 PM
A couple weeks ago we told you about the delicious Lemon Verbena ice cream that Noble’s chef Brinn Sinnott made with freshly picked herbs from the restaurant’s rooftop garden. This week Sinnott’s bosses, Bruno Pouget and Todd Rodgers, have announced plans for a series of monthly Roof-to-Table dinners that will showcase the bounty of their great garden in the sky.
 
CNN.com - Eatocracy
Roof-to-table is the new farm-to-table
July 1st, 2010
03:30 PM ET
Roberta’s in New York City is livin’ la vida locavore. The pizzeria, turning out locally sourced dishes, takes it a step further by growing produce on the restaurant’s very own rooftop garden.
 
New York (NY) Times
Food Stuff
From Roof to Table
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: July 27, 2010
Red and yellow watermelons, ripe strawberries, squash blossoms, heads of romaine and Bibb lettuces and fresh chickpeas are among the crops being lowered, using a pulley system, from the rooftop garden on a building in Greenwich Village. These will supply the kitchen of Bell Book & Candle, a restaurant opening in a month or so on the building’s ground floor. John Mooney, above, the chef, and his partner, Mick O’Sullivan, are growing more than 70 varieties of herbs, vegetables and fruits using a hydroponic automatic watering system of vertically planted structures, like little towers studded with openings for the plants.
 
ABC News
Roof to Table
Chef John Mooney – gardener, restaurant owner, and “treehugger” – shows a little love to the tower of romaine lettuce he will use in salads and other dishes in the restaurant he plans to open.
Aug 03, 2010 06:03 PM