Big impact in a small package

Summer 2025 California Bountiful magazine

Urban farm’s microgreens and edible flowers brighten plates and palates

Story by Linda DuBois
Photos by Lori Fusaro

Microgreens and edible flowers can add a visual pop to entrées, side dishes, desserts and drinks. Drew Rosenberg, executive chef of CUT By Wolfgang Puck in Beverly Hills, agrees, but that’s not really why he’s a big fan.

“The most important thing for me is flavor,” Rosenberg says, adding that these culinary gems are important in bringing together a dish’s overall taste and texture. “I think a lot of chefs will say that it’s about the presentation first. Well, something can look gorgeous but if the flavor is second, it’s always kind of a disappointment.”

Microgreens are young seedlings of edible plants, mostly vegetables and herbs, that usually taste like more potent versions of the mature plants.

Rosenberg either mixes microgreens into ingredients or places them on top of a dish, depending on what he’s making. Some he cooks and others he uses raw, often seasoned with a little oil and salt to bring out the flavor.

A big fan

Edible flowers and microgreens have been on Rosenberg’s menus throughout his career. Growing up in New York watching cooking shows instead of cartoons, Rosenberg landed his first cooking job at age 14, and he’d head to the restaurant every day right after school. He later studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and cooked for fine-dining restaurants in several cities before making his way to Los Angeles. He’s been with the Michelin-starred steakhouse inside the Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, for four years.

During his first year at CUT, he noticed on social media that many of the top chefs around Los Angeles were sourcing microgreens and edible flowers from Joni Albers of Hungry Gardens Urban Farm in LA’s Sun Valley.

“I messaged her, and she came by with a bunch of samples. Some of it was stuff I’d never seen before,” he says. He was such a fan that he became a standing-order customer.

“She brings me what she picked that morning, so everything is super fresh,” Rosenberg says, adding that the difference in flavor compared to what he formerly had shipped to him is “night and day.”

His favorites

He has several that he buys regularly, including the Japanese herb kinome, the young leaves from sansho pepper plants. “Sansho is a peppercorn berry that gives you a peppery, citrusy numbing sensation on your tongue,” Rosenberg says, adding the leaves “add a very interesting flavor” to his fish, sashimi and crudos.

His “favorite microgreen of all time” is Albers’ Cantaloupe Micro. “It tastes like cucumber melon and the texture’s great. It goes really well dressed up with a little bit of vinaigrette and some seasoning,” he says.

“Joni’s always trying new stuff, always sending samples. Every week I’m getting something different,” he says, adding that works well with CUT’s revolving menu.

“She’s so passionate,” he adds. “She’s so excited about her products, and it makes us want to treat the product even better.”

Diners at CUT are often intrigued by Albers’ products, he says. “They’ll say, ‘What is that? I’ve never seen that before’ or ‘That flavor’s so unique.’ So, I teach my servers what all these are and have them try them.”

LA grown

Albers grows these plants in Sun Valley’s Stonehurst neighborhood, a residential area with large lots popular with horse owners.

Founded by Albers in January 2020, Hungry Gardens Urban Farm started out growing organic heirloom produce, but it now focuses on microgreens and edible flowers. Its other primary income source is building gardens and farms for various organizations, restaurants and homeowners, and it also has a small apiary that produces a limited batch of honey.

The microgreens grow from seven to 45 days, depending on the variety, in shallow soil-filled trays on tables in two greenhouses. The edible flowers are slower growing but keep producing flowers for up to six months. They are all seasonal crops, but growing them in greenhouses extends the season and allows for the planting and harvesting of different varieties year-round.

“We utilize every square inch of this property to grow,” Albers says. Her almost 6,000 square feet of greenhouse space takes up most of it, but the available 1,000 square feet outdoors is filled with perennials and other crops suitable for year-round outside growing.

Which stage of growth microgreens are harvested depends on the plant variety, Albers says.

“Within the anatomy of a seedling, you have what’s called the cotyledon leaf, and that’s the first leaf that emerges when a seedling pops open. Then, the next set of leaves that come out are the first true leaves,” she says.

Some microgreens are the cotyledon leaves and others are the first true leaves, she says.

“Like, for arugula, we don’t want the first true leaf to emerge. The same thing for radish, because it gets fibrous and it loses its texture and its flavor, but then there are some, like cilantro, where we really want that first set of true leaves.”

Sells locally

A firm believer in hyperlocal food sources, Albers sells about two-thirds of her products to Los Angeles restaurants, including several with Michelin stars, with the other third going to distributors who serve nearby areas such as Orange County, Las Vegas and San Diego.

Like CUT, most of the restaurants have standing orders of favorites but also change their menus frequently. When changes are pending, they’ll let Albers know and she’ll adjust her crops accordingly.

“We also have restaurants that just buy out of our open availability. So then, it’s first come, first served,” she adds. “We want to keep everybody happy but also manage our waste as well.” Should the farm grow anything that doesn’t sell, it’s donated to families with children receiving treatment at a local pediatric specialty-care hospital.

Her most in-demand microgreen is micro cilantro, which is wildly popular in Southern California. Another favorite is Sweet Lupina, one of the only edible lupine varieties, which has “a strong pea flavor and a succulent texture,” Albers says. She adds that chefs love it because of its unique shape and pronounced flavor.

Among her most popular edible flowers are Chocolate Bells, a bright purple and yellow bell-shaped flower that tastes like chocolate. “Chefs love it for the color and sweet flavor,” she says.

While chefs have their favorites, they also want to keep things fresh. “All of my chefs are looking for things that are not like what everybody else has,” Albers says. So, she is constantly seeking out plant varieties from all over the world that aren’t commercially grown in the United States.

However, it never fails that shortly after she starts growing something brand new, some commercial growers start growing the same thing. “And then it’s time to move on to something else,” she says, chuckling. “The fortunate thing is we have an incredible seed diversity in the world, and it just takes time and effort to locate those.”

Linda DuBois

The magic of microgreens

Microgreens are known for adding flavor and texture to a dish, but they also are packed with nutrition.

A plant’s microgreens have the same volume of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals as the full-grown version, says Joni Albers, who grows microgreens at Hungry Gardens Urban Farm in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles.

“Interestingly enough, the amount of nutrients that a seed starts with just gets spread out over a bunch of water and fiber as the plant gets bigger. So, eating microgreens is a way of ingesting highly nutrient-dense vitamins and minerals,” she says.

“For example, if you were to eat a cup of broccoli microgreens, that would be the equivalent in nutrition to eating almost six cups of mature broccoli. So, if you’re looking for a way to get a lot of nutrients into a meal, you could just eat microgreens—unless you really want to eat six cups of broccoli,” she adds with a laugh.

That’s why she encourages other farmers and home gardeners to try growing microgreens. “Microgreens have such a small footprint. You can grow so much nutrition in such a little space,” she says. “So, I see it as a future source of nutrition that can be produced in your immediate area, whether it’s in your house or down your street.”

Watch a TV segment about Hungry Gardens Urban Farm here.