TODOLI CHEF TRIP (2026)
Last week, we embarked on our second annual Todoli X Shrub chefs and supplier trip, with some of the South-East's most integrity-driven and talented chefs and business owners. It did not disappoint.
Supplier trips have always been a keystone to Shrub’s bridge between farmers and businesses. A sure fire way to capture the emotion and substance of what we try to communicate on a daily basis through traditional communications. But there is no substitute to the smell of earth, leaves, fruit, getting your hands on the tree or in the ground. There is nothing esoteric about our human connection to the natural world. We are the natural world. And while our minds may have forgotten this to a greater extent thanks to the advent of the tech-revolution, our senses have not.
It was also our great pleasure to bring along two Shrubbers, Katrina and Georgie. If the aforementioned is important for our customers, it's vital for our team. In addition, Daisy Wingate-Saul, long time friend and luxury travel photographer was riding shotgun to capture the magic of this trip, in which she exceeded expectations, as you can see. And the finest garnish of caviar to any occasion, Nick Payne-Baader, of SLOP magazine… possibly the greatest travel and dining companion on the planet. He should host elocution lessons for exquisite company…
It's an hour's drive south of Valencia to reach the Todoli Citrus Foundation. No matter how many times I've done it, I forget about one particular road (if you can call it that) that would give Alex Hannold vertigo. There is a perfectly simple D-tour around it but I’m a slave to google maps. It's so narrow, with a 90 degree turn at the end and a sheer (3 foot) drop, that Daisy had to get out and guide the Mercedes wheels betwixt the lick of tarmac like an aircraft carrier flight deck director. We made it round without an Italian Job style ending…
As you enter the foundation through the secure sliding metal gate, you’re immediately enclosed into an almost riad style paradise. The pathway guides you to “The Laboratory”.
“The Foundation’s Gastronomic Laboratory is a meeting place for chefs and citrus fruits, where ideas full of aromas and flavors are developed. It was built with the advice of the renowned Catalan chef Ferran Adrià, who from his restaurant elBulli pioneered the physical and chemical transformation of food during the cooking process. Architect Carlos Salazar, author of the project, was awarded the Golden Novum Design Award 2021 in the Architecture Design section for this work. Salazar transformed the former tool shed of the original orchard into a modern and functional building.” - Vicente Todoli
Vicente Todoli
It is from here, the tour begins. Depending on the time of the season, one can expect to sample between 150 to 250 varieties of citrus in the space of four hours. This does not represent half of the 540+ rare, and exclusive varieties that make up the largest private collections of citrus in the world.
Half a dozen tables are positioned along a designated path through the citrus orchards with a great many varieties that are grouped together in near or adjacent taxonomies. Like any great menu, the tasting is curated in such a way that your pallet isn’t entirely shot to pieces by the time you get to the last table, which mercifully ends with unctuous, quenching blood oranges…
I’m not going to walk you through the entire tour, that would be quite boring for you and also take up most of my google drive capacity. Instead, we encourage you to visit the foundation and take one of their weekly tours. The region is rich in culture and history with some of the oldest portable art and cave paintings in the world being founded in the Montcabrer mountains, its the regional home of Paella, the vast pans fueled by split planks of orange wood, and sandy beaches for miles, nuzzling the mediterranean sea. Worth the trip.
However, what is worth sharing with you is the sheer sense of discovery… In the UK in particular, if you asked the average consumer what citrus varieties they knew existed, you’d likely get back, “lemons, lime, oranges, clementine or easy peelers”... This isn’t a snub on the UK consumer, far from it. We can only buy what we’re offered, and in the world of citrus, it's been all about efficiency and uniformity, not variety and choice. So when you are presented the incomprehensible array of hundreds of hybridisations, the feeling is a mix of vertigo, excitement and betrayal. Shapes, sizes, colours, flavours and scents you have never conceived before. Grape, geranium, crushed summer fruits, oyster, ozone, coriander, pineapple, chocolate and pepper are thrown about amongst a lot of “Oh my God!”.
“It’s not everyday that your mind is blown by a subject you thought you knew about but visiting Todoli is certainly one of those moments. The coming together of passion and conservation is something rare and extremely special.
It’s very easy to see food as little more than a necessity, maybe a luxury but at somewhere like Todolí you see it as this whole other idea: a piece of culture, of nature that should be appreciated as something beautiful and unique and worthy of something in itself rather than just it’s value as something to fill us up or pleasure our palates.
Preserving food culture comes in an enormous number of forms and doing things like buying up a load of land and importing hundreds of fruit trees is one of the more challenging, I’m grateful someone does it.
This is also coming from someone that hated oranges until my 20’s, now I can’t stop eating the bastards!”
Nick Payne-Baader - SLOP Magazine
“You’d think tasting 150 varieties of citrus in an afternoon would be mouth puckeringly tedious but with each one having such a unique flavour profile with varying degrees of acidity made it utterly fascinating. Our visit to Todoli Citrus Foundation was not only an education but a truly inspirational experience. Thank you Shrub!”
Christine Hall - Giddy Grocer
“Spending time in Vicenté’s citrus groves was a rare moment of the type of inspiration that comes round disappointingly infrequently. Total commitment to the quality and variety of Citrus at Todolí requires the pretty singular vision, and ambitious obsession that is amazing to be around. I feel so lucky to have been invited to visit, and ultimately to be able to buy Todolí citrus via Shrub.”
Mike Davies - The Camberwell Arms
Visiting Todoli was simply inspiring. I must have sampled over 100 varieties of citrus, and each one had its own unique characteristics. For a chef who is passionate about produce, I couldn't recommend it enough. It will certainly get the creative juices flowing.
Max Roberts - Heckfield Place
For our customers and our farmers, we live for these moments. We’re privileged to be in the unique position to bring these incredible people together. It puts the integrity and respect where it should be; with the produce, the producers and those championing it.
We’re incredibly grateful to the Todoli team, Vicente, Cristina, Oscar, Jenna, Nando and the countless others that contribute to this miraculous place. We also owe a great deal of respect and gratitude to Matthew Slotover of Toklas Restaurant and Bakery whose close friendship and pioneering spirit with Vicente Todoli first made the import of these fruits a possibility to the UK and we hope we do them all justice.
We can’t wait for next year!
