For six years, Flame and Smith’s owners, Sarah Soetens and chef Hidde Zomer have tended both their children, and a large home garden of herbs and vegetables — the inspiration behind the restaurant’s revolving offerings.

It is hard to get more local: their primary garden is almost literally across the street from the Bloomfield restaurant. While I was touring the garden with Ms. Soetens, she received a call from Mr. Zomer asking if she could bring over some basil.

The menu changes with the day’s harvest. When I naively asked Chef Zomer, “Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you thought you were going to do one thing in the morning, but, come the evening, you had to do something else?” He laughed. “Um, that’s a Friday for me. It’s always on the move. A menu is a forecast. It’s really based on what’s coming from the garden. We’re not taking a checklist to the Toronto food terminal. We’re looking at what’s coming from the garden. We write those things down and discuss with our team how to use them in different ways.”

Tuscan kale caesar salad will feature the very leaves I was standing next to while I talked to Ms. Soetens in her garden.

At the same time as it’s improvised, it’s not random. Early each year, the team plans its planting season, deciding what to plant, and strategizing the rhythm of harvests so that, for example, one crop of tomatoes comes in July and another in August. 

The mastermind behind it all is Vicki Emlaw, who has the special heirloom seeds, and her larger garden also supplements that of Flame and Smith. 

As winter approaches, the team will have laid in the produce that lasts. “You’ll cellar it, you’ll cure it, you’ll dry age it, you’ll pickle it, you’ll freeze it,” explains Ms. Soetens, “as much as you can. It’s almost like in the olden days.”

Supplies also come from Edwin County Farms and Honey Wagon Farms —all of whose goods feature on this fall’s Countylicious menu, which offers a snapshot of what the season has to offer.

Tuscan kale caesar salad will feature the very leaves I was standing next to while I talked to Ms. Soetens in her garden; sunflower seeds harvested earlier are hanging to dry in the restaurant as I spoke to Mr. Zomer.

Chicken from Prinzen Poultry Farm is paired with rainbow swiss chard, also from the garden. A classic pork loin comes with roasted apples from Campbell’s Orchard. Elements from farther afield, like seafood, are prepared with herbs and vegetables sourced steps away.

“And that’s what Countylicious is about, right?” says Ms. Soetens, “It’s what your local producers and culinary artists are doing right now!” Countylicious patrons are generally local, she notes. “We do get the traveler or the weekender, but we’re seeing a lot of people from Northumberland, Kingston, the broader Bay of Quinte and Hastings area. It’s an attraction to visit at the peak of the harvest.”

Flame and Smith offers something for all the senses, a “composed dish.” As Ms. Soetens notes, the edible flowers growing in the garden, “aren’t going to give you any protein or anything like that, but this adds that blue color, it adds a pop. And now all of a sudden your dish is not just flavor and texture but it’s colour—and now we’re getting to every sense, your sense of sight, sense of smell, texture and taste. A fine-dining establishment in the city has to import these, but we can just grow them. We can bring these things that chefs in the cities just crave and we’re like, oh, it’s right here in our garden!”

The restaurant itself is a blend of County and European influences. Mr. Zomer is originally Dutch. “We went for a style that doesn’t go out of style,” he says. The kitchen is open to the restaurant, displaying ten feet of open fire cooking. Most of the restaurant’s seating, as well as the bar, have vantage points on the action. The pace of the restaurant may be faster than in the garden, but it is just as integrated. The same team that planned the garden in February harvested it in the fall and prepared it on the day of your visit. Flame and Smith is well worth a visit.